


Mags' War, Part 7

by thankyoufinnick (mildred_of_midgard)



Series: Mags-verse [8]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: 78th Hunger Games, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Chronic Illness, Chronic Pain, Depression, Eating Disorders, Gen, Hunger Games-Typical Death/Violence, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, Minor Character Death, Prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-29 13:40:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 37,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12632184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mildred_of_midgard/pseuds/thankyoufinnick
Summary: The rebels could win the war...if only they could put an end to the Hunger Games. The Capitol is equally determined to keep the Games up every year, no matter how fast control of Panem is slipping from their grasp.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A note on chronology: parts 4 and 5 end around the same time, when Annie and Cashmere go into exile. Parts 6 and 7 pick up around the same time, when Annie and Cashmere are arriving in their new country, which means this chapter jumps back in time to about 4 years before the end of part 6.

"He did what?!"

"Don't ask me." The man reporting to Johanna looks just as baffled as she feels. "I'm just telling you what he told us. Odair went on an undercover mission in District One and got out just in time after his cover was blown. I don't have any more details than that. I don't even know if he was telling the truth or thought he was under surveillance. He didn't... _look_...delirious? Although he was running a fever, so who knows."

"Oh, I believe he's capable of it," Johanna mutters menacingly. He's going to answer to her for this, for making her spend the last several months wondering where he was and promising herself to murder him the next time she saw him, if he wasn't already dead. They're in the middle of a project, and he goes and disappears again. _We discussed this!_

_What part of "run it by me, let me make plans around you not being here" is so damn hard?_

But now she's consumed with curiosity. _Fine, first I find out what you've been up to, then I rip your head off._

"Finnick!" Johanna stomps into the hospital tent where he's lying. "Where are you?"

No one reacts. One of the medics asks her to lower her voice. Johanna growls. She'd have to raise her voice anyway to be heard over the groans. So she stomps around, and almost doesn't recognize Finnick when she finds him.

His head is shaved, he's thinner than she's ever seen him, and his face is covered in bruises.

She doesn't spare him.

"You want to go on an undercover mission into enemy territory, fine. I'll be the last one to stop you. You want to risk your life, well, there's a war on. But we discussed this! You can be the most useful person on the planet when you're around, doesn't matter if I never know when I can count on you."

Looming over the cot where he's lying, Johanna scrutinizes him, then nudges him with her knee. Finnick shivers under the worn blanket, despite the warm weather, and doesn't say anything.

"Good, you do look halfway into your grave. Maybe I won't have to push you the rest of the way."

Grey-faced, Finnick ignores her. He looks like he's going to throw up.

"I hope you got something useful. Do I need to drag you somewhere private so I can debrief you?" Finnick's a wonder when it comes to getting information, and avid curiosity is starting to penetrate her anger, now that she can see he's alive. What was worth going to District One?

"Take my shirt." His voice is so hoarse that Johanna hesitates before she decides she heard him right. Then she looks around at the hospital tent, and at his bed, for any clues as to why he might want a strip show here and now.

"Take...what shirt?" Maybe there's another one she's not seeing.

Finnick tugs the sweat-soaked fabric away from his chest. It's a frilly, stained, puce affair that's seen better days. "Take off my shirt."

"Take off your own shirt!" Johanna retaliates out of sheer habit, but when Finnick sighs, props himself up heavily on one elbow, and closes his eyes, wincing as he tries to get it over his shoulders, Johanna grabs at it. "Never mind, you're obviously too weak to do anything for yourself."

It's strangely stiff in places and doesn't fold naturally. Once Finnick is bare-chested, he collapses again. Johanna does him the favor of pulling the blanket up to his shoulders.

Finnick gestures weakly at the shirt in her hands, and Johanna starts poking and then tearing at it. False pockets on the inside. That makes sense, then.

"Playing your cards close to your chest?" she quips. Upon closer inspection, she finds that they're not just pockets, they're compartments sewn closed on all sides. She takes the knife from her belt, sits on the edge of the bed, and proceeds to rip the shirt open.

When the first blister pack falls into her lap, Johanna lifts it up and stares at it helplessly, overcome by deja vu. "Finnick, what am I supposed to do with this?"

"Well, I'm hoping you'll accept it," Finnick whispers. "Because I can't go back in time."

Johanna can't either, so she keeps tearing the fabric open, and pocketing pack after pack of painkillers.

"Tell me this isn't why you went to District One," she demands, on the verge of panic. The whole situation is so much worse than she imagined. "Tell me this just fell out of the sky while you were there. Like the jam."

"I did get some intelligence," Finnick says. "I'll tell you later."

"And you had your cover blown," Johanna accuses, her heart speeding up even more. He's not denying it that this is what he went for. "Did you get yourself almost killed over these pills?"

"My cover was blown," Finnick confirms, "but I made it back in time. I'll be all right. Just give me a few days."

"You showed up severely dehydrated, barely able to hold food down, with all the symptoms of poisoning, only no one's sure exactly what poison, probably more than one. What have you been eating?!"

"What happened to confidentiality?" Finnick asks, outraged.

"Confidentiality is for wusses. And I'm a better spy than you."

Finnick smiles weakly, as she'd hoped. "I'll tell you everything, just..." As his words trail off, he clutches the sheet beneath him into a fist. It's clear this much conversation has taken all his strength. "Not just now."

"Come up to HQ when you're on your feet," Johanna orders him. "No disappearing before you report to me."

Finnick nods, and then he slides back into sleep.

* * *

Johanna debriefs Finnick in the conference room when he returns. Just the two of them, her sitting at the head of the long table where they've seen each other through so many sleepless nights.

She scrutinizes him when he takes his seat. He doesn't look much better than when she saw him in the hospital tent at the border. Worse than the emaciation or the dark hollows above his now sharp cheekbones is a look in his eyes like he doesn't quite know where he is and he's running on autopilot. Johanna remembers this look from the mirror after her first Games. The second time around, she knew to avoid mirrors.

His hair's just started growing out again, still barely fuzz.

"Part of your disguise?" she wonders, nodding at it.

He laughs a little. "My disguise was growing it long. No, it's lice."

"Lice?" Johanna blurts. " _You_?" Sometimes her mouth runs on autopilot.

Finnick smiles wryly. "It's growing out. You should have seen me without any hair at all."

She snorts. "I did. Debrief, then." She's still hoping that he was primarily on an intelligence or assassination mission, but her hopes are quickly dashed.

"So you went to District One to filch meds?" she interrupts only a few sentences into the account. "Not, say, District Six?"

"District Six has the cheap recreational stuff. District One has the high-grade pharmaceuticals."

"Because they're loyal to the Capitol!" If it were anything else, Johanna would be cheering on his one-man infiltrations, but he took this risk to bring her _medication_?

Finnick grins, but a tremor along his jaw line undermines his air of confidence. "District Six is a war zone. Once you get past the border, District One is pretty calm."

"District One is pretty calm enemy territory where anyone who recognizes you will turn you over to the Capitol!" Johanna protests.

"It was safer than it sounds. I knew a little about how they operate, and they use sex as a second currency there. You can trade for favors, goods, information, money...and it's respectable. Given how much of the population put in at least a year at the academy, a lot of them had some sex training.

"So I knew I could operate at night, get information and drugs without having to register for a proper job, find a place to stay during the day, so on. They even don't have a curfew, which took a hell of a long time to get used to. I kept looking over my shoulder for patrolling Peacekeepers."

This is getting worse by the minute. "So you're telling me you lived on the streets and pretended to be a hooker?"

"Pretended, hell," Finnick scoffs. "I'm good at this. I'm the best there is."

The horrifying feeling of responsibility for something she never asked for isn't quite at the level of learning about her father's death, but there's not much else that competes with it, either.

"I don't need painkillers," she cries, "I need you here, helping me get shit done! Look, I risked my life for Katniss, I'm not saying you don't go on missions that might get you killed. I'm saying you do it when it's life-or-death, when it's win-or-lose. Painkillers are a luxury. Why do you think you found them in the luxury district, brainless?"

"They were the right kind, yes?" Finnick presses, unfazed by the taunting.

"Yes," she's forced to admit, "but that's not what matters. It wasn't worth the risk _or_ the cost!"

"Johanna, that's what you say before someone does something for you, not after."

She can see him looking hurt but persevering, determined to be pleased with his own success whether or not anyone else appreciates it.

"Do you at least understand Katniss now?" he prods. "She was never comfortable with the sacrifices she didn't ask for either."

"She wasn't comfortable with us starting a war and expecting her to participate!" Johanna rages. "I—I've been fighting! I've been working! You don't need to bring me painkillers to get me to cooperate, or even to get me functional. I know I skip meetings, and I've missed some action—but I've been doing more than anyone! I took out the surveillance station, I captured-"

"Johanna, Johanna. I'm not saying you're not getting enough done. I'm saying the opposite. You're doing so great I'd love to have you in meetings, if the only reason you're skipping is because you're in pain and we might notice. Even if I didn't like you enough to hate knowing you're in pain, I respect you enough to want more of you in action."

Johanna's barely mollified. "I'm not trying to be ungrateful, I just don't want you doing this again," she explains. "I _told_ you I'd stop experimenting, idiot."

Finnick shrugs. "I can't very well do it again, can I? My face was finally caught on a surveillance tape clearly enough that whoever was reviewing it got suspicious. That's when they started rounding up all the Finnick Odair-lookalikes."

"The what," she says flatly, refusing to believe she heard that right.

An impish smile fills Finnick's face and eyes, and for a moment, he looks like himself again. "Well, you see, I didn't know it until I got there, but District One is the one place where I could blend in. Because they're already trying to look like me."

Arrogant smirking bastard. Johanna narrows her eyes, determined to hang on to her disapproval no matter what the punchline is. "Because they were never the brightest district in Panem?"

"Because there's an entire corner of the prostitution market built on the idea that if you're picking someone up off the street, it's because you can't afford me. Good sound economic strategy. Admit it." Finnick looks more than pleased with himself, he's downright smug.

Johanna can't help the twitching of her cheeks. She tries to compensate by looking him up and down critically. "Well, I see how everyone in One managed to look more like you than you do, with you looking like something the cat dragged in. So how did you get poisoned? What were you eating?"

He shrugs. "Food's being rationed, so my options were limited. Pigeons, mostly. Scraps. I found a pond in a park after a while."

"What were the pigeons eating?" Johanna interrupts.

Finnick shrugs. "Garbage, bugs, whatever pigeons eat. Spoiled food or rat poison, I don't know. Look, I know what I'm doing. It's less dangerous than the arena."

"Oh, so that makes it okay? If it's safer than the arena, it must be an acceptable risk," she mocks. "You have a death wish, boy?"

"I'm not a civilian," Finnick insists. "I'm military-slash-spy. I'm supposed to stay in the front lines, doing what I do best, doing everything in my power to turn the tide of the war. I'm not Katniss, or Pearleye—not one of the rebels too important to lose."

 _Doing what I do best._ The phrase nauseates Johanna. Yes, it must be familiar, even if it's horrible.

"There's too important to lose," she argues, "and there's too important to throw away. And this is throwing yourself away. Rudder told me not to let you burn out, but he didn't give me any goddamn pointers."

"Did he say anything about not letting me do my job?"

"He didn't say anything about making sure you didn't sneak into enemy territory, play at being a street-walker, and pretend to be a Finnick Odair-lookalike, no," Johanna informs him, voice rising, "because he didn't think of it! Nobody ever imagines the stunts you're going to pull. Where are you sleeping tonight?"

Finnick looks startled at the sudden change in subject, then reflexively jokes, "Not in an alley. In the barracks, I assume."

"Not with a fever, you're not. I'm half tempted to put you in my room while I figure out what to do with you." How on earth she's going to keep an eye on him and keep him from racing after his next crackbrained idea, Johanna has no idea, but she'll figure something out.

Not until she sees how Finnick's laughing, smirking expression has fractured, and been replaced by something painful, does it dawn on Johanna how selfish and clueless she sounded. She's just about to backtrack when Finnick says the most incomprehensible thing.

"I appreciate the thought, but you don't owe me anything. I know when I do things for people, they think they owe me, but you've already—look, you were reaped twice, you sacrificed yourself to take care of Katniss, you weren't exchanged, you've worked wonders here...it's your turn."

"It's my turn? When is it your turn?!" Nothing about Finnick makes sense. "And what do you mean, I don't owe you anything? That was a threat. You don't _want_ to sleep in my room, do you?" After everything he's been through, she should have been offering to scrounge up a private room for him, kick someone else out of theirs, and she was just about to, when he started talking nonsense.

"You're good for my insomnia," he says simply.

"Oh. Is that why you're always-"

Finnick nods.

"Well, if that's how you want it...but we need to make a rule that you run all your ideas by me before you go chasing after your latest. It's me," she says persuasively, "you know I won't wet blanket your good ones just because they're crazy."

He smiles. "I'd trust you with my ideas and my sleep, but I didn't do this so you could owe me. It's all right, really."

But Johanna's got her first clue to a solution since Rudder asked her to keep Finnick from burning out, as well as her first indication that he really is burning out, and she's hell-bent on solving this problem. 

"Forget what I owe you, then. We'll make a deal. You sleep in my room, and in return, you check in with me before you leave the district. I'll share you, but only if I can plan around it."

Finnick studies her face. "All right. But you'll let me know if I'm being a nuisance, and I'll keep up my end of the bargain even if you have to ask me to move out. I don't want you handcuffed to me because you've got more important priorities."

"Finnick, I'm Johanna Mason. I'll probably tell you you're a nuisance even if you're not. Now, the bed's not big enough for two, but there's a rug by the stov-oh, hell, take the bed-"

"No, you need the bed for your back. The rug's perfect. It's just until I'm back on my feet, anyway."

It feels selfish, but he has a point. She's not about to let him escape this easily, though.

"You report to me until the sky falls, you hear?"

"Report for sleeping duty?" Finnick cracks up, but there's something open in his laughter that tells Johanna that's exactly what he needs to hear.

"You're under orders to report for sleeping duty, damn straight. And if you go awol again, you'll answer to me and you won't like it." She's winging this blindly, but it seems to be working, wonder of all wonders.

"Yes, boss."

"Effective immediately." Johanna rises. When Finnick follows, she doesn't miss how slowly and stiffly he moves.

As they enter her room, Johanna remembers that she keeps the woodpile to a minimum. "You lie down, I'll be right back with some more wood, and we'll build up a big fire."

"Can we afford to?"

"Firewood is the one thing we don't have a shortage of." Johanna doesn't admit that she doesn't keep the room as warm as she'd like because she's busy trying to tough it out. If she has Finnick as an excuse, she'll keep her mouth shut.

"Thanks, Johanna, really." Finnick curls up on the braided rag rug, clenched up in an effort not to shiver. "I'll be over this soon."

"You stay put."

When she gets back, he hasn't even taken one of the two blankets from the bed. Rolling her eyes, Johanna drops one on him on her way to build up the fire. "I'll keep an eye on it until the room's good and warm, then I'll bank it before I go to bed."

When she's finished, Johanna pauses, sitting on her heels about a foot away from Finnick, and gives him a good, long look. How to put this?

"You said you don't like sleeping alone. If that's why you've been sleeping around, and you need-"

Finnick jerks his head hard, no. "I sleep worse when I'm sleeping around. I'm on alert the whole time. It's about making them happy, it's never about getting me to relax. Same with touch, it's never about what I want-"

"Then you do like being touched," Johanna blurts out, without thinking.

Finnick gives her a curious look. "I'm weird about touch. But yeah, it's the same as not sleeping alone. If it's someone I trust...Why?"

Should she say it? This is awkward. But Rudder gave her a mission. She can't let herself keep failing it just because she's squeamish. And she has no idea how else to do this.

Gripping the blister pack in her pocket, Johanna takes a deep breath and jumps off the deep end. "Annie said I should take over for her. Not the sex. This." Johanna puts her other hand on his shoulder, like a dare.

It's almost worth it just for the look on his face. "She said—what?! When, in the cave?"

Johanna nods, looking smug and feeling out of her depth. "Her exact words were 'wither and die,' as in, 'don't let him wither and die of touch starvation.' I was skeptical then, but after you disappear into District One and try to get yourself killed the moment you have no one to keep an eye on you, I'm getting less skeptical by the minute."

Finnick mouths _wither and die_ in disbelief. "She may have been making it sound more like an emergency than it is, out of wifely concern. And no matter how much I might miss her, that doesn't mean it's up to you to make up the difference."

"Uh huh. Rudder seems prone to overreacting. And real wifely, that's him."

"I wouldn't know, I'm not the one who proposed to him." He chuckles when Johanna thumps him on the shoulder, then puts her hand back in position. "But I mean it. You never signed up to be _my_ wife."

"That's what she said. That you'd protest at first and try everything to avoid inconveniencing anyone else, but you couldn't bring yourself to move if I insisted. And since you haven't moved since I got here-" Johanna looks down at her hand, "-I have to say, Annie's pretty sharp."

"Annie's observant as hell, but she shouldn't have brought you into this."

Johanna folds her arms. "You're a goddamn hypocrite, that's what you are. You can go to unheard of lengths to make my life a tiny bit easier, but I put my hand on your shoulder, and it's pull-out-all-the-stops time to make sure I can't return the favor?"

"It's not hypocrisy. You're trying to keep me from burning out, and I'm trying to keep you from burning out. And I told you, there's no favor you need to return."

"Burning out—from what? You sleep on my rug, and I pat your back from time to time. In private, not in public." She has her limits.

Finnick smiles thinly. "I'm a bit harder to live with than you're giving me credit for. I'd rather have two months of a place to sleep than one month with sleep and shoulder-patting."

"One month?" Johanna boggles. "Give me credit for not being a delicate fucking flower. What makes you so hard to live with, anyway? Screaming nightmares?"

"No. No, the nightmares are pretty quiet, and insomnia's always been the bigger problem. It's nothing specific. It's just that I tend to be too much, too intense...and people get tired. Everyone does, sooner or later."

"You know," Johanna reminisces menacingly, "I've heard that line before. Told everyone who said it to fuck off. You've never had a problem with me being intense."

"No, but you don't like touching, that's why Annie had to ask in the first place, and you've insisted on having a room to yourself all this time...You know, it's not worth it-"

Finnick rolls over and is in the process of climbing to his feet, when Johanna grabs his head and pushes him back down. "You have a fever. I'm going to win this one."

"I'll have you know I took out Sheer with a fever." But he lets her pin him and doesn't fight back.

"I slit a boy's throat when I was paralyzed," Johanna counters. Her hands are on his head, so she leaves them there and starts kneading her fingers experimentally through his hair. He seems to like it, so she keeps at it. "And I only need a room so no one knows how bad my back problems are. You already know, and—well, I have painkillers, so I probably won't have a night as bad as that one again. But sometimes it takes a while for them to kick in, so you can keep me company on bad nights."

"Yeah? It helps?" For the first time, something seems to sink in. "Maybe I should stay, then."

Johanna may not do touchy-feely, but she wants him back on his feet for the same reason he wants her on hers. "You follow orders and stay put. And tell me if I'm doing it wrong. I'm not good at this, and you have enough strangers pawing all over you."

"You're not a stranger, you're the best friend I've got. But how's this?" Finnick rolls over onto his back, and grins up at her with a look that leaves her undecided whether she can't wait to find out what he's got up his sleeve, or whether she should be backing away slowly. "If you want to make deals, we'll make this deal. I'll let you pat my shoulder if it makes you and Annie feel better, if you admit that the imitation Finnick Odairs in District One are hilarious. Not that they're training kids to be prostitutes in case they make it through the Hunger Games, but we're fighting a war to put an end to that. But that even if you're trained from childhood, you still can't do any better than pretend to be me...find something more hilarious than that."

Johanna glares at him. She doesn't want to encourage him, but if she puts herself in his shoes, she has to admit she'd be gloating all over the place. "No, but I'll give you something more hilarious. You were hiding out pretending not to be you by pretending to be someone pretending to be you. How does shit that never happens to other people always happen to you? Tell me your secret."

Finnick laughs with her until the tears run down their faces, and she may not have half as many fucks to give about the kids in One as she does about whether he thinks this is normal behavior, but at least if he's laughing, he's not looking like he got lost somewhere between here and that alley he called home all summer.

"You're such an idiot." Johanna punches him, unrepentant even when she remembers, belatedly, that every joint in his body must be aching. "And how did you get those bruises on your face, anyway?"

Finnick touches his cheekbones. "Are they still there?"

"Not so much. But they were when you were in the hospital, and I wondered. If you're tired, it can wait."

"Nah, get comfortable and I'll tell you. I've got a ton of great stories."

Comfortable means bed, and Johanna hesitates before she abandons him on the floor. She doesn't know him well enough to know how much touch might be too much or not enough, doesn't even know if her weird, stilted patting counts, but they have time now, don't they? She climbs into bed. "All right, boy, bring on the crazy. Strut your stuff."

She gets the story of how he prepared for his drug deal, which had to be carried out in good enough light that he ran the risk of being recognized. Rather than settle for dark glasses like a normal person, he went to the trouble of picking a fight with a drunk beforehand and making sure his face got messed up.

"It would have been better if I could have done it to myself. I can take a punch, I knocked the socks off the rest of the class at pain training...but it turns out I have instincts against punching myself in the face that I just could not overcome. It was strange, I never saw that coming. So I had to get someone else to do it without letting on."

"Only you, Finnick."

She hears about the pond, the hospital, the prostitute who let him know when the lookalikes were being rounded up. The drug deal, the convoy of camp followers he accompanied north to the border, and how he wrangled an escape over the border and back into friendly territory.

"Oh, and-" Finnick starts laughing uncontrollably. "Maybe I shouldn't tell you this part. But it's so embarrassing. I got everything right, pulled this whole mission off, got the drugs, didn't get recognized in person—or, I don't know, maybe somebody reported me, but I doubt it—lived on the streets...but that first week, I forgot my shots had worn off before I remembered that condoms existed. It was only a few, but..."

"It only takes once!" If he fucking dies because of this, because of her... _Why_ can't she travel back in time? She'd throttle him before she ever let him out of her sight.

"I know. But let me tell you how I picked up the local slang by eavesdropping. I'm so amazing at this."

Story after story like this she gets, each more bizarre than the last. She laughs with him at every one, but at the end, she says in a low, shamed voice, "I'm sorry I have such a low pain tolerance." None of this should have been necessary.

"Bullshit!"

"No, it's true. The pain's not that bad, usually," she explains. "I can work through it, I can function through it, I can even fight through it. Even when I can't move, it's not the kind of pain that makes you scream. You saw me at my worst. That's as bad as it gets."

"You work yourself to exhaustion through it and then you can't sleep, and you tell me you have a low pain tolerance?"

"It's how I knew I wouldn't be able to handle torture. They can do the screaming and crying pain." She's never admitted this to anyone else, but she owes Finnick even if she never asked him for anything. Will she ever stop being bombarded by the fallout of her weakness?

"Johanna, I'm glad you didn't try! And that's crazy, you're the toughest piece of leather I know. How many years did you manage without treatment?"

"That's my point. If I lasted all those years, I shouldn't be breaking down now. Now of all times in the middle of a war."

"So, it's getting worse," Finnick says impatiently.

"Pain without a cause doesn't get worse," Johanna says, surprised.

"Sure it does. Octavius didn't have four years with it, he had forty. I'll take his word."

Octavius, Octavius...the victor from Four who never fully recovered. "But he had unhealed injuries, right?"

"You both stopped going to Capitol doctors because you stopped trusting them, and you both had conditions that worsened. And don't tell me both of you have—or had—low tolerances to pain."

Johanna falls silent, thinking about that. Maybe. Maybe it's not just Finnick's lungs deteriorating. _Fucking arenas._ "Well, I can promise you one thing. I've got your back now."

"You've always-"

"No. I haven't. But I do now."

* * *

Having a roommate's not nearly as bad as Johanna was dreading. He's quiet, talks when she wants to talk, and shuts up and stops arguing when she pulls the boss card. Eventually, he even comes around to accepting that this is where he lives now, and he doesn't have to offer to leave every single day.

It takes weeks before a downside to surrendering her privacy dawns on her. She's dressing, chatting with Finnick, and he's not looking away, because why would he? when she realizes that the marks on her arms are visible. Hastily, she pulls on a shirt, trying to keep her face from heating up.

Finnick notices. Of course. He doesn't insult her intelligence by pretending not to. "Whatever it is," he says, "it's a battle scar."

Johanna's head flies up. "What do you mean, whatever it is?" She launches herself at him, and he reacts reflexively. "You know what it is! Don't play coy with me!"

"What do you mean, I know what it is?" Finnick demands, when he's fought her off and joined her on the bed. "You always think I know everything, and I'm flattered, but I wish I were half as good at spying as you think I am."

They stare at each other in astonishment, until Johanna finally says, "Well, what else could it be?"

"It could be anything! How many times have you been through hell? Could be marks from the time you were a POW, could be self-inflicted, could be a tattoo that says _I miss my dad._ "

Caught by surprise, Johanna snorts at that one.

"Whatever it is, you're obviously not comfortable showing it, and that's fine, I-" Finnick stops as something occurs to him. "You're not comfortable letting me see it even if you think I know what it is."

"Knowing is one thing," Johanna defends, "seeing is another. I thought you knew and you were okay with it..." Her voice trails off while she wonders what's going to happen if he's not okay with her history after all.

"I don't know how you think I could think less of you. Have you forgotten who I'm married to?"

"I'm supposed to be tougher than that."

"You can't be braver than Annie," Finnick says definitively, "not possible."

"Well, you're not going to realize I shouldn't be in charge and District Seven should be in the hands of someone who's got their shit together?"

"Johanna, Mags is dead, Lyme and Rudder are busy, and Pearleye's not half as tough as you. You're in charge here."

"It's not a battle scar, though," she warns him.

"Even if it's self-inflicted, it is. Look, the only thing I'm going to give you a hard time about is a big heart with an arrow through it and my name."

"Finnick! You are the most conceited, egomaniacal-" Johanna pounces, playfully this time, and they tussle for fun, laughing too hard to use most of their moves.

"You wouldn't be the first, is all I'm saying," Finnick says, when he's caught his breath.

That just sets her off again, pummeling and grabbing and kneeing, until he finally pins her to the bed. Johanna sees him realize a second later how it looks, but she's looking up at him without the least fear, only a question in her eyes.

"You're in charge," Finnick answers quietly. She nods, trying to let his trust sink in.

He releases her, and they crawl back into a sitting position on the bed, side by side.

Still working her way up to trusting him, not quite ready yet, Johanna elbows Finnick in the side. "What do you mean, I wouldn't be the first?!"

"Have you _been_ to the Capitol?"

"Yeah," she snorts, "how do you think they got me to talk? They threatened me with one of those and I told them everything."

Finnick laughs with her.

"Or," she chokes, "or, the reason I have to wear long sleeves is because I'll never be able to stop throwing up."

"Oh, that's how they all stayed so thin!" Finnick jokes back. The laughter has an edge of hysteria and goes on much too long, but it's cathartic for both of them.

When they're worn out, and Finnick is trying to hide his shortness of breath like he thinks she'll forget about it or something, he tries again to reassure her. "You're in charge." Then, "Mags had a stroke and arthritis and couldn't talk and we all still took orders from her."

"Even though you could have pinned her to the bed?" Johanna says, amused but still uncertain.

The image of him pinning Mags makes his eyes widen involuntarily.

"See, you wouldn't dare!" Johanna prods him. "She had you terrified."

"Because she raised me!" Finnick protests. "Tell me you would have pinned your grandmother."

"Not in a million years," Johanna admits. "All right." She moves her arm imperiously, an order to look, and Finnick obediently rolls up her sleeve.

He stares blankly at the old, faded marks for a minute, while Johanna holds her breath, before he recognizes the pattern. Track marks.

"What did I say about battle scars?" he says gently, rolling her sleeve back down. "You shot up because you were having such a great time these past few years? Big, non-stop party?"

"My back wouldn't leave me alone," Johanna confesses. "You've seen what I'm like when I can't even move. And half the time I can move, I just can't sleep, and I got desperate...I can't believe you went haring off to District One without knowing—you saw me! You found me, completely out of it. I thought you didn't believe me when I told you I'd stop experimenting. But now you're saying you didn't even know what I meant?"

"I believed you, but I knew you wouldn't have been experimenting in the first place if you weren't desperate. What I knew was bad enough, that you were trying painkillers without being too picky. It was worth anything I could do to help. If you've been trying—what, morphling?"

She nods. "And its cousins."

"Then you were right, that's not exactly news even if I didn't know you had the marks. I know some of those painkillers make you sleepy, slow-"

"Stupid," she interjects bitterly.

"And I know there's nothing you hate more than not being quick and alert and in-your-face. I went to District One because I knew whatever trade-off you made between pain and drugs, you didn't have any good choices."

"I never even had time to get addicted to anything," she complains. "I'd just have the chance to get physically dependent, and I'd run out, and I'd get hit with withdrawal. I'd have to lock myself in here every time I was noticeably out of it, or going cold turkey, or I'd pass out from lack of sleep...and you still think I can be trusted with responsibility?"

"More than anyone," Finnick says honestly, proudly. "You're a fighter."


	2. Chapter 2

Every year, Finnick hopes the rebel armies have managed to put an end to the ability of the Capitol to stage another round of Hunger Games. Then the fact that he can't defend the border in Seven with this stupid wall wouldn't matter. And every year, his hopes are crushed.

"You can stop working on the defenses," Johanna announces.

Finnick squeezes his eyes shut and sighs a deep breath. "Damn it."

Johanna looks at him in surprise. "What? You knew it wasn't going to work."

"No, but..." She summoned him back from the border with Six, and he'd dared to hope for good news.

Foolish hope.

Johanna looks at him curiously, and when he doesn't finish his sentence, shrugs. "Anyway, it served its purpose. I got a lot of military initiatives that I've been wanting, and in return, all I have to do is get a rescue mission going for the missing kids, which, as I'm sure I don't need to tell you, I am one hundred percent behind."

"From the Capitol?" Finnick's brain immediately starts racing down the possibly pathways, trying to come up with ways for that not to be a suicide mission.

"From the arena, if we can swing it."

"Do we know where it is?" Finnick asks, astonished.

"No, I have no idea. That's why I figured I'd ask you first." Johanna winks at him. "And alone."

Finnick snorts and rolls his eyes. "I hate to disappoint you, but I haven't fucked any Gamemakers lately. It'll be a bit of a stretch if I try to start now."

"You figured out all my secrets without fucking me," Johanna points out. "If you can't figure this one out, fine, but I thought I'd ask."

"I'm betting they're holding it in Two, near the Capitol." Finnick thinks out loud. "Although One does have mountains. Two has more fighting, but also more troops. That means there's a chance the Four troops in Two can find out. I'll see if I can get anything out of Rudder. He's not very talkative, but he trusts me with intelligence."

"Rudder's not in Three," Johanna informs him. "I tried sending a message, was told he left two weeks ago."

"Rudder? But he's been in Three since the war started..." Finnick's voice trails off.

"You think he's on a rescue mission too," Johanna guesses. "Ha!"

"But why now? This is the third year of Games since the war started."

"Pearleye and Plutarch have been at a hammer and anvil strategy in Two, right?" Johanna says. "Maybe this year they've pushed deep enough."

Suddenly, Finnick knows with utter certainty that if the arena's been located, Rudder will be there, for the same reason he has to be there.

He and Johanna exchange a look.

She bares her teeth in a grin. "Let's do it."

* * *

"Is this the 'craft you airlifted me to lower altitude in?" Finnick asks, scrutinizing the controls. Johanna's slipped in beside him. "And do we have at least two people who can fly it?"

"Do we have at least one?" she counters. "Not on short notice. We can delay our departure, but the parade was this morning. And you have sharp eyes." Johanna raises her eyebrows.

"I've found it useful to be able to tell one hovercraft from another," Finnick says drily.

"That sounds like a story," Johanna prompts. Finnick's got some crazy stories, and he's good at telling them, too.

"Tell you later. I don't know if you've got one, but if we can to stay on friendly territory and radio our position ahead so we don't get shot down, maybe. We're sure it's flightworthy?"

"I've had engineers crawling over every inch, and they say it's flightworthy. As long as we've got a worthy flyboy," she needles.

"I've put in my hours on the flight simulators in Three and Four, and I've logged some air time as well. I'm not the best pilot in the world, but I'm authorized." With Annie gone, he's got nothing else to do in Three.

"Good enough for me." Johanna can drive trucks and logs, but there are no flight simulators up here.

"Who's coming? Have we got supplies?"

"Supplies are taken care of. Four semi-civilian-militia-type soldiers who knew the kids."

Finnick grunts. "Parents?" Considering how he reacted when he thought Annie was in the arena, he can neither blame them for any compromised judgment nor think it's a good idea to have them along.

"No, but an uncle."

"Mm." Finnick looks up. "All right, I'm comfortable with these controls. You've got yourself a pilot."

Johanna claps him on his shoulder. "My flyboy and my spy boy."

Finnick laughs. Looks like he's piloting the rescue mission.

* * *

"So did you learn to fly sleep-deprived?" Johanna ribs him during a lull in mid-air. "Is that like flying drunk?"

"Not so much," Finnick explains. "Not that my insomnia ever really goes away, but Dahlia wasn't so bad. I slept better at her place than most. She was just going through the motions of a socialite lifestyle, and fucking me was one of those motions. She may have been born to that life, but she did a less convincing job of pretending to fit in than I did. She was really very serious and just wanted to be left alone to work."

"Huh. You think you would have liked her if she was from the districts?"

"Maybe." Finnick shrugs. "Or maybe she'd have been like Pearleye and we'd have gotten on each other's nerves. Either way, her house was pretty low-key, and I managed to get some sleep. Not as much as when I'm with someone I trust." He glances at Johanna. "But better than nothing."

They land in Four without serious incident, only a couple of close calls, and one forced landing where Finnick had to exit the 'craft and prove that he wasn't operating under duress. Once in Four, Finnick works his contacts hard and establishes that yes, Rudder is on the front lines in Two, along with Elspa.

Then he gets his team a ride into Two.

"Wow, you have tanks now?" Johanna looks around at the convoy, impressed, before she lets one of the troops shoo them all into the back of the truck they'll be riding in.

"Evidently." Probably captured from the enemy, unless Six and Thirteen are cranking out materiel faster than Finnick had realized.

"Know how to operate one?"

Finnick laughs. "No, but..."

"How hard can it be?" Johanna winks.

"Flying is harder than it looks," he tells her. "But I'm good at learning how to halfway do things."

As the convoy rolls across the desert, Finnick wonders about anti-tank mines, old or new, but he makes an effort to shove that into the nothing-to-be-done slot of his brain. If the Four troops haven't been able to secure a route in the last two or so years since they expanded outside their borders, it's pure silliness, not to mention arrogance, to think that he'd be able to do anything about it in the next five minutes.

He just likes it better when he has some element of control.

Finnick looks over at Johanna and forces in and out a deep breath. _Focus. There'll be plenty of work to be done when you get there, if you're right._

Noticing, Johanna digs her shoulder into his arm, and he knows she's telling him the same thing. _Calm down. Whatever happens, we'll tackle it together._

"No sleep until we get there?" She raises an eyebrow and speaks under her breath.

Finnick sighs. "I'll try. I know Mags would want me to. I just don't deal well with adrenaline when I don't have an outlet for it."

"She didn't train you?"

"Oh, she did. So did Rudder. It was easier when I was younger." Before Mags was dead, and Annie gone.

Now Johanna knees his thigh. They're crammed into the back of a truck with supplies and a dozen other sweating bodies in the desert summer, and it looks like she's jostling for space, but Finnick can read her message. _If you need touch to relax, here's your touch._

He smiles his gratitude and closes his eyes, trying to ignore the sweat that streams down over them from his forehead. They'll be there soon.

It's both too soon and not soon enough when they arrive at the Four encampment in Two. Thirteen is camped not far off.

"Both of you!" Elspa cackles when Finnick and Johanna find her.

"I knew it," adds Brine, coming up from behind her with a grin.

"Is everyone here?" Finnick asks, a smile flickering across his face. He may have a complicated relationship with Brine and almost none at all with Elspa, but just being surrounded by Four accents strikes a twinge of nostalgia. "Rudder?"

"Everyone," Elspa confirms. She thrums with energy as she paces back and forth, chin tilted confidently. "Rudder's occupied, but I'll send word that you've arrived."

Finnick follows Elspa with his eyes. She has the same panther-like grace that he always admired in Cashmere. 

"Katniss too," Brine adds.

Elspa notices Finnick's gaze and flicks him back appreciation. They fucked a couple of times, long ago, but they're too much alike to really be close. Finnick finds himself getting competitive with her in a way he doesn't even with Johanna.

"Wow, family reunion," Finnick jokes.

Like a lightning bolt, resentment flashes across Elspa's face. She still thinks she would have won, even though the girl who was accepted as volunteer over her died. Maybe she would have; maybe Mags wanted the stronger candidate here on the front lines in Two ten years later, not gambling her life in the arena. 

Or maybe she wouldn't have; the only year they had two female volunteers was the year none of the eighteen-year-olds in Four wanted to be shown up by a fourteen-year-old, and the year no one in One or Two wanted to risk a repeat of the previous year. The year Four was targeted in the bloodbath, and neither of their tributes lasted out the first hour.

Sixty-Six.

"So we do know where the arena is?" Johanna demands. Finnick can feel her excitement mounting along with his, in lockstep with the dread.

"Closing in on it." 

"This is the endgame, then," Finnick says. "If we've made this much headway in Two."

Brine nods. "Maybe so. We think we can crack this nut if we just press a little harder."

"But not in time to prevent this year's Games," Elspa says. "So we're going to have to stage a separate mission. I'm sure you'll be brought up to date. We had advance notice you were coming," she says to Finnick, "but not the rest of you. How many in total from Seven?"

"Four plus me," Johanna answers.

"All right, we'll get you settled in. You don't mind camping with us?"

"Well, we were going to set up a separate Seven camp on our own front line and attack the enemy from there," Johanna says, straight-faced, "but I suppose we could join forces."

Elspa looks approving. "You'll do."

* * *

Johanna watches Elspa incorporate the new arrivals casually, staring at the other woman like her life depends on figuring out what the difference between them is.

She holds her head high, but so does Johanna. She can juggle with her eyes closed—give orders, gather information, make decisions, and switch from topic to topic without missing a beat, but so can Johanna.

Then Elspa laughs, dipping her head in a private nod at the officer standing beside her. He grins back, in what's obviously an inside joke.

That's it, that's the difference. Elspa's easy in command. She leads like she doesn't expect to be challenged. She's not locked in a non-stop battle with everyone she meets.

_That could have been me,_ Johanna cries in silent anguish. _That should have been me!_

"I should have been from District Four," Johanna grumbles later, setting up camp with Finnick and her team.

"You would have been happier," Finnick acknowledges. "So would I," he adds with a smile. "But for the sake of Panem, I'm glad you were from Seven."

Johanna almost drops the pole she's holding. "What?" She stares at Finnick in utter disbelief until he pauses in his setup and looks at her, bemused. "But I haven't done anything like what I could have." 

"You would have done amazing work in Four, but then we wouldn't have had anyone in Seven, and we needed that more than we needed one more amazing person in Four."

"Really?" Johanna's standing frozen in place, not bothering to hide her shock. Then her eyes narrow. "Are you saying this to make me feel better?"

"No! Remember when you wanted to come to Four, but everyone said you should stay where you were?"

"Yes, but then I got captured, and I talked, and I haven't been able to drag anyone hiding in the mountains down to the front lines. I can't take credit for the fighting in Seven—they would have done that without me."

"Yes, of course. But you're the reason Seven's in an alliance with us. Why do you think Katniss hasn't been there?"

"It's not because she hates my guts?"

Finnick grins. "Nah. There's a war on. Since when do any of our feelings matter? She goes where she's needed, and thanks to you, she hasn't been needed in Seven."

Johanna breathes deep. Really?

Then her brain catches up to her facial expressions, and she realizes she's letting her vulnerability show. So Johanna does what she does best and goes on the offense.

"So what's up with you and Elspa?" she teases. "Don't tell me you weren't making ooh-la-la eyes at each other the whole time."

Finnick laughs. "We have great flirting chemistry, but we can't stand each other an hour after the sex, so that's as far as that ever goes. Not like Annie, we were friends before there was ever any sex."

"And it's not great sex?" Johanna guesses.

Finnick gives her a look, pretending to be disgruntled. "Johanna, do you even know what a boundary is?" But he answers, because he doesn't really mind and she knows it. "Honestly, I don't think I had great sex with Elspa either. I'm not sure if I ever do. I'm too busy making it perfect sex. So if I don't have perfect sex with Annie, it's because I trust her. She gets to see all my messy, inconvenient sides. That's why I married her."

"You got married?" Delighted, Johanna jogs him with her elbow. "For real, or-"

"Oh, yes, we tied the knot." Finnick grins helplessly, remembering.

"Congratulations! How did you not invite me, you thoughtless bastard?"

"Well, you know how it is. Out of sight, out of mind." Finnick dodges the tent pole she swings at him. "No, if we'd gotten married in Seven, you'd have been in charge of organizing the wedding, don't worry."

"Organize your own wedding, lazybones."

"Sorry, too busy enjoying the company of my fiancée." Finnick sticks out his tongue. "No, the sad thing is, I wasn't even doing that. Want to know how I spent the days leading up to my wedding? Same way I spend most of my time with you—catching up on sleep. Lazybones is more right than you know. That's what I mean about the messy bits." Finnick laughs, and even Johanna can tell he's laughing because it hurts. "I hardly ever got to see her, and I slept through most of it."

"Sounds like you'll have to make up for lost time afterwards, then." Johanna drives a peg into the ground and holds her hand out.

Finnick tosses her the hammer, and she catches it one-handed. "That was exactly our wedding promise."

"Then I'll just have to win the war faster, and make sure you're all caught up on sleep before you see her."

Finnick looks touched, but he knows better than to say it. "I'm sure you'll kill me if I say that's really sweet of you, but that's really fierce and problem-solving of you."

Johanna laughs hard. "I try."

Just then, someone calls Finnick's name. "I'll finish up here," Johanna tells him. "Catch you later?"

"Thanks. Ask for Benton when you're done," Finnick suggests. "I think you'll have a lot to talk about."

Just as he's taking off and she's hauling a bulky bundle of sleeping bags, a man she doesn't recognize steps up. "I can take that."

Finnick half turns. "Nah, she's got it. You don't know Johanna."

Seething, Johanna knows what's next— _she'll take your head off if you try to help her_ —but every person she's trained is one less person getting in her way. She's yanking the bundle out of the man's reach, throwing them both off balance, when Finnick continues,

"She used to drive logs. Move trees around. You should ask her about it sometime, it's pretty interesting stuff."

"All right." The man backs off. "Just trying to help."

"The nice thing about Johanna," Finnick persists, "is that she gets her job done, so you can go get something else done."

Johanna bites the inside of her cheek to keep the smile from breaking out. "Don't you have somewhere to be?" she calls to Finnick.

He grins back. "But seriously, talk to Benton. He's our logistics guy from way back. You put your heads together and you'll be unstoppable." Finnick looks up at the guy behind her. "And I'm serious about asking her about the log drive." He blows them a kiss, and he's gone.

Fine, it's not like she has anything better to do. Besides, as annoying as he can be, always insisting on her making contacts, they do keep paying off.

Stupid Finnick, always being useful.

* * *

When Peeta comes looking Finnick up, Finnick's both touched and concerned.

"What are you doing here?"

The last he'd heard, it wasn't safe for Peeta to leave Thirteen. Now he's here, on the front lines? Something's gone wrong. Someone decided Katniss needed the moral support this badly, and either Peeta insisted or someone insisted Peeta come against his will.

Finnick doesn't know Peeta well, but he knows him well enough to suspect he volunteered. It doesn't leave Finnick much less worried.

Slowly, Peeta sits down beside him. "I heard you were here for the Games. I thought I'd come say hi."

Someone actually wanting to talk to Finnick is soothing, but that wasn't the question and Peeta knows it. He's silent for a while.

"Prim's started going out on the battlefields with the medics," he finally says. "Even that Avox woman from Four is here."

"What, Coral?" Finnick interrupts. "You know, she escaped a fire meant to kill her and somehow made it to District Thirteen after the war'd broken out. She seems unusually self-sufficient. You don't need to feel bad—Annie's gone so deep in hiding I'm not even allowed to know where she is."

"Is that why you're so nice to me? Do I remind you of her?"

"Those are two different things," Finnick protests. "Yes, you're like Annie in some ways, but I don't have so many people who can stand me that I wouldn't appreciate you anyway." He takes Peeta's hand. "I suppose Katniss is still mad at me?"

"I told you, it's more complicated than that. And that reminds me, Haymitch says he's not. He's recovering from an injury in Thirteen, by the way, or he'd be here too."

Finnick sighs involuntarily. "He forgave me?"

"He didn't seem like he thought there was anything to forgive. He didn't want to go, you did, and he doesn't know what idiot thought he was more cut out for charming bigwigs than you."

"What?" Finnick's jaw drops. "But of course he didn't _want_ to go, that doesn't mean he wasn't _going_ to go. If I hadn't talked him out of it while he was too drunk to say no. I was sure he'd regret it in the morning, and I did it anyway."

Peeta shrugs. "He thought you saved him from a miserably boring evening and did a better job at it to boot. Why, you always do what you don't want to, even if there's a way out?"

"Of course!"

"Well, I guess it's harder to get Haymitch to go along with something he thinks is stupid." Peeta glances at him quickly. "No offense."

"None taken. I just—well, I guess that's one person who doesn't wish I'd disappear. Shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. Anyway, you talk to him a lot?" Finnick smiles. "Nothing beats a good mentor."

Then Finnick bites his tongue, because shit, he'd managed to forget for a minute why he doesn't have his mentor any more, and he wasn't trying to rub it in.

Peeta gives him a long look. "How close were you and Mags?" he asks softly.

Finnick makes a face, swallows. "Pretty close," he admits.

"Haymitch and I aren't that close. But...he's been there for me, more than once."

Bracing himself with a deep breath, Peeta begins tapping the thumb of his free hand on his knee while he works up the courage. Finnick hangs on tight to his left hand and listens.

"My mother. Used to yell at me a lot. Us. Hit us. With her hands, usually. Sometimes with the rolling pin. We never talked about it. But everyone knew. My father knew. He used to tell me to let what she said go in one ear and out the other. I guess that's what he did. 

"He was always kind. But he never stood up for me. No one did. Not until the Hunger Games. Katniss. Haymitch. You."

"That happens. There's your blood family, and there's your victor family. What'd Haymitch do? You don't have to tell me," Finnick adds, when Peeta struggles to open.

"No, I...I don't have a lot of people to talk to. And you keep putting up with me for some reason."

"Remember what I said about the victor family?" Finnick asks gently.

"I know, but I killed half your victor family."

"True, but so did I, and so did Annie, and Katniss, and Plutarch, and Snow. It took six of us to kill one eighty-year-old lady with arthritis and a stroke, and she still had to help us out. Talk about indestructible!"

To Peeta's quizzical, hesitant expression, Finnick shrugs. "I laugh at life, I laugh at death, it's what I do. But you were saying about Haymitch?"

"He...saw my mother...being herself in my house in the Victors' Village. He yelled at her, told her to get out. She said she wouldn't let a disgusting old drunk tell her how to raise her own children so they could turn out fuckups like him. It...escalated. The whole family was there.

"In the end, he got his way. She moved out. But so did they all. My dad would come to visit, but he went home to her. One of my brothers said he wanted to live with me, but...too scared of her, I guess. Can't blame him."

Finnick makes a deep, wordless sound in his throat. "You, me, Annie...all estranged." Johanna, Mags, and Rudder left alone. Cashmere and Gloss keeping their distance to keep their secrets. And on and on it went. _We don't get to keep our families._

"I should have said something, done something. I just sat there, frozen, while they all shouted and threw things. I should have-"

"Oh, Peeta." Finnick shakes his head. "What would you have said?"

"I don't know. To this day, I don't know. And now they're all dead."

And now Peeta's always saying he wishes Finnick would come back to Thirteen, and Finnick's always finding an excuse to go back to Seven. "You compared me to an older brother once. I'm sorry I'm not around more, but if there's anything I can do while we're here, don't hesitate."

Peeta chuckles nervously. "Actually, I was trying to get up the courage to ask you for a favor—Not that kind," he hastens to add, although Finnick would have been more surprised if it was. "But I mean, after you saved my life five times in two days and we didn't even make it easy for you, at this point I've got nothing to lose by asking, right?"

Finnick laughs with him, hoping Peeta's humor is self-deprecating and not too bitter. "Sure, why not. Ask away."

"But you have to promise not to tell Katniss. She'll kill us both."

Now Finnick's curiosity is piqued, but he has an idea what's coming. "Peeta, if there's one thing I can do, it's keep a secret," he assures the boy.

"I guess so." Swallowing a couple times, Peeta asks surprisingly steadily, "I'm not a total innocent, but I know there's a lot you learn as you go along, and I was hoping...you must have gotten this question before, right?"

"Oh yeah." Finnick settles back against a stack of crates, getting comfortable. "I can do this one in my sleep."

He can't tell you how to get someone to notice you, other than _win the Hunger Games at fourteen and look pretty doing it_ , but how to please them in bed, that he is a world-class expert on.

"Okay," Peeta says with relief, "but you cannot tell Katniss I asked!"

"Your secret is safe with me. Now, there are two versions-"

"You really have done this before," Peeta interrupts.

"A million times. So there's the one where you have a sex life, and the one where you don't yet but you want one." Finnick pauses.

Peeta is shaking his head. "No, she really will kill me. It's none of her business where I learn what I know, but it is her business what I tell you about her."

"Fair enough. So here go both, then."

The lecture leaves Peeta both fascinated and doubled over in laughter, and Finnick smirking and laughing with him. He's had fun crafting something light-hearted and educational over the years, and it's always gratifying when he knows his hard-won experience will be put to use making someone he cares about happy.

"Thanks, man," Peeta says, when Finnick winds to a close. "So you and Cinna, huh?"

Finnick smiles. "I couldn't tell whether he was more interested in me professionally or sexually. I wore his clothes for a season, got him some good publicity. Maybe that helped his promotion to Twelve stylist, who knows."

Peeta's smiling. "That finally makes sense out of something I didn't understand for a long time. When Cinna and I came out and saw you and Katniss chatting by the chariot, Cinna threw his hand over his eyes very dramatically, half turned away, and exclaimed, 'I can't look!' And I was so confused, because Katniss looked fine."

Finnick chuckles. "Me and Cinna used to joke around like that. And wow, but you are straight."

"Guess so," Peeta says. "Sorry, I just don't see it. You're into both, then?"

The easy answer is yes. "Probably. It was a job, it didn't matter what I was into." Since they've just been talking about sex, Finnick admits something he's never admitted out loud before. "Sometimes I had to put the effort into being more turned on, sometimes into being less turned on. It didn't seem to matter whether it was a man or woman. None of that says anything about me, about what I liked. Enough physical stimulation and your body doesn't care who's delivering it. Straight as you are, I promise I could make you scream right now if our lives depended on it."

Peeta looks sick. "But Cinna wasn't—he wasn't allowed to sponsor. Right?" he says pleadingly.

"Oh. No, don't worry, he wasn't one of my clients. What you have to understand is that President Snow was watching me so closely that even at home, never mind the Capitol, I had to choose who I slept with based on what it got me, whether it was information or shaping what he thought of me. There were never no strings attached."

"Wow. I feel bad asking you to talk about it, then. Taking advantage of all your experience."

"Nah," Finnick assures him, "I actually like knowing it'll be put to good use. And more than that, when you ask for something, it feels like reaching out. I don't want payback, I want someone to reach back. It doesn't bother you, then—after the last time we spoke?"

"What, your history, or the fact that Katniss doesn't like it? I'm sorry it happened to you, I'm sorry about all your sacrifices, but I can't hold it against you. And Katniss...It took me ten years to get her to notice me, but I never stopped loving her, not for a day. If she doesn't like me reaching out to you, I can wait her out on this one too."

_Stubborn boy._ Finnick smiles affectionately. 

He's glad that they get the occasional chance to talk, even if it's only once a year, even if he can't be the confidant Peeta craves. But even if everything were working out between him and Peeta and Katniss, it's been so many years that any time Finnick thinks about how maybe he should have stayed in Thirteen, all he can he think is how much he'd have to give up. He hasn't been idle, and he's been doing important work that no one else could do.

Just then, he hears an impatient shout. "Finnick! Where are you? We're having a meeting, get your butt in gear!"

Bossy Johanna always warms Finnick's heart, and her teasing him about missing a meeting makes him laugh. "I'm coming!"

* * *

The meeting is full of familiar faces. Rudder, Elspa, and Brine from Four, Plutarch and Katniss from Thirteen, Lyme from Two, and of course, him and Johanna from Seven.

A number of them are carrying injuries, visible or otherwise. Lyme's arm hangs from her shoulder in a sling. A patch covers Rudder's left eye. Johanna leans subtly forward in her chair to avoid putting pressure on her right upper back, but presses the lower part hard against the rigid pine backing.

Lyme opens. "I'll summarize, for the new arrivals." She points at the map projected onto the wall. "You can see here how far deep into Two territory we've pushed. We hold everything between here and the borders to Four in the west and District Ten in the east. I have to admit most of that was uninhabited, but we did capture weapons testing sites in the desert that have been very useful. 

"Meanwhile, they're pulling in and closing a line of defense around the Capitol, and the fighting has been up here. More mountains. It's hard for both sides to move large bodies of troops around in, and easier to hide, spy, sabotage, and ambush. We have enough insider support that the terrain isn't as much of an advantage to them as it could be.

"The plan is to keep pushing them back, until we can capture the Capitol. But this week, we have to think about the Hunger Games. The tributes enter the arena tomorrow. We've spent the last month or two narrowing in on its location, and in the last few days we finally found it.

"As you'd expect, it's behind enemy lines, and they will defend it strongly. This means if we make a move for it, it will have to be a small but powerful thrust. We can't afford to throw away resources that we'll need to take the Capitol. Rescuing the tributes, though, will be a great psychological victory."

"Will it?" Brine asks. "We evacuated the arena in Seventy-Five-"

" _Half_ the arena," Johanna snaps.

Finnick represses a reaction, because she doesn't want pity and his guilt won't help her, and Brine flinches. "Anyway," he stammers, before resuming his flow, "it didn't win us the war. Here we are, three years later, doing the same thing."

"It helped unite most of the districts," Plutarch says calmly, "and got us defectors from the others. But I'll tell you this: our failure to prevent future Hunger Games has weighed against us in the balance of this war. As long as there are Hunger Games, the Capitol can claim to be in control, even if the infrastructure is falling apart around them. We haven't won as long as we still have to give up our children and watch them die. This is why the Capitol has been so insistent on holding the Games every year, even though they could have used those resources elsewhere. That's why we have to do what we can to put an end to these Games."

"Their arenas have to be weaker now, though, right?" Katniss says.

"Weak is still deadly," Plutarch says. "Don't underestimate them. Arenas are begun up to five years in advance, and they're finished on a rotating schedule." He glances at Johanna. "Seventy-One was an unusual year. But this arena will have been begun when the Capitol was at its peak of wealth and power. At best, it'll lack some of the elaborations that get added toward the end."

"Like a giant saltwater pond in the middle?" quips Finnick.

Plutarch gives him a stern look. "Yes," he says flatly. "Last-minute sponsor pressure went into that feature. Next question?"

Finnick chuckles and lets the discussion go back to serious topics.

"What we know about the arena," Rudder begins summarizing, "is that it's inside a mountain. Most likely both to defend against bombing and to favor Two. What kind of measures may have been taken against the One tributes to prevent a repeat of last year, we don't know. But we do suspect an environment that would favor anyone with a mining and quarrying background."

"Do they have a mining and quarrying background?" Finnick directs his question to Lyme. "Full-time weapons training, right?"

"First, we start them older than One. Second, whether or not they've personally worked in the mines or gone to school or worked in a store, they'll be familiar with mountains, rocks, and tunnels. Third, if you think we don't train them to be good at what the audience expects them to be good at..."

"Fair enough," Finnick concedes. Why else did Johanna train with an axe? "So more rocks."

"More rocks," Rudder agrees. He gestures to a man sitting further down the table. "This is Max. He's heading up the team of engineers we have to try to get information about, control over, and sabotage of the arena. We'll need engineers as much as we need armed forces."

Max nods to everyone at the table. "We have managed to intercept some of the signals coming between the arena and the Gamemakers control room in the Capitol. We're tapping them, in other words, and we don't believe they're aware.

"Deciphering is another matter, and controlling is even harder. We're operating from the assumption that we won't know what the arena looks like until we receive the official broadcast tomorrow along with the rest of the country, and we won't be able to wrest control of the arena. If we send a team into the arena, it will be into Gamemaker-controlled territory.

"Nevertheless, my team is working round the clock to get as much information as possible, particularly on the location and nature of the traps. If, for example, they have the ability to strike you with lightning from anywhere in the arena, that will be information we have to build our strategies around."

"You're saying we won't be able to send anyone on the first day," Finnick says. "That we have to do reconnaissance first."

"There will be tributes killed," Plutarch confirms. "If we go in without information, all we can do is die with them."

"Are we definitely sending a team, then?" Katniss asks. "The last I heard, that hadn't been decided."

"Unless we can find a better way to stage a rescue," Rudder answers.

"Step one is going to be the assault on the outer defenses," Plutarch elaborates. "If, and I mean if, we can break past them and gain entrance to the arena, then we will try sending a team inside."

Katniss catches Finnick's eye. He knows immediately what she's thinking, and he gives her a tiny nod.

Katniss raises her voice. "If this is for propaganda, then we have to send someone recognizable. Someone like me."

An invisible electric current runs around the table, but no one looks surprised. The leaders must have been waiting for this.

"Is it more dangerous than the other appearances you've been having me make?" Katniss presses.

Plutarch considers. "Somewhat, yes. Enemy territory is not Gamemaker territory. We didn't have a choice the last time you went into the arena. Now you're asking me to authorize it."

"It's a big gamble," Lyme says. "If we pull it off, the image of the Mockingjay rescuing children and returning them home will be burned into the minds of the entire country. If we deliberately send the Mockingjay into the arena and the Gamemakers take her out, we look irresponsible, arrogant, even suicidal, and we lose one of our most important game pieces."

"But if we don't use her for what she's good at, she's not our most important piece."

Finnick wishes Haymitch were here. Looking around the table, he doesn't see anyone who might be mentoring Katniss. Plutarch is formal and distant, and to all appearances, less personally invested in Katniss than Rudder is in Finnick. And Peeta, who either wasn't invited or didn't want to come, is doing the best he can at moral support, but he's in no position to guide and advise.

"Can't we film her receiving the children once they exit the arena," Lyme argues, "promise them they'll see their families again, maybe even personally deliver them to their families?"

"Look," Katniss says, "I don't want to die. But neither do those kids. I'm supposed to stay safe and look them in the eye afterward, then take all the credit? I'm not offering to go alone, just to share the risk. I'll have the same odds as anyone else."

"Higher," Finnick interjects. "I'll be with her."

Another deep sigh of breaths around the table, but no one objects.

"It'll be _fiiine_ ," Finnick drawls, grinning. There's no way he's sitting on the sidelines and watching this happen. Katniss knew that the moment she glanced at him.

"Oh, sure, Katniss couldn't be safer," Johanna chimes in. "Why not let Peeta come along for the ride too?"

Johanna laughs snidely at the immediate chorus of _No_ s. "Even safer than last time, then." She smirks.

"The composition of the teams is something we're going to hammer out in the next couple of days," Rudder says in tones of finality. "It will be volunteer-only, and each member will need the joint approval of myself, Lyme, and Plutarch. We'll need a minimum of two teams, one for the initial, exterior assault, and one for entry if the first one is successful.

"In the meantime, an overview of what's happening in the next two days. The engineers have an outpost in the mountains not far from the arena, where is where they're intercepting these electronic signals Max talked about. We will be joining them, and launching our mission from there. Elspa, you'll be in command down here."

Elspa nods.

"We'll be accepting applications for this mission, and we'll be meeting with each of you individually. Dismissed."

* * *

Rudder interviews Johanna first. 

"If Finnick goes into the arena, is he going to get himself killed?"

Johanna's jaw drops.

"Is that a no, then?"

Johanna's brain stutters to a halt, tries to change tracks. "Well, I was thinking more along the lines of me keeping him from getting killed when Katniss doesn't give a shit or outright attacks him, but, no, let me think."

She drums her fingers on her knee, pondering. 

"You're saying he's so stuck on the idea that it's his job to rescue everyone else that if you let him loose with Katniss and a bunch of tributes, he's going to start throwing himself in front of everyone left, right, and center?" She nods, tightening her lips disapprovingly.

"Maybe," Rudder says, not giving anything away. "Does he have any other reasons for getting himself killed that you know of?"

_Oh, shit._ That's right, Rudder knows about Finnick's lungs. "You mean choosing a quick death?"

"Has he shown any signs?" Rudder retorts.

Johanna takes a deep breath. She can protect Finnick from enemy soldiers, mutts, Gamemakers, and Katniss. She doesn't want to think about dangers she can't protect him from.

"He's been throwing himself into danger a lot. Insisting that we're not allowed to rescue him. But that's how he got himself into this situation, right? Volunteering for the Hunger Games, carrying Peeta, sacrificing Mags, getting electrocuted."

"If I put him in command, do you think responsibility for a team will put a damper on his recklessness, give him something to sacrifice himself for, or put everyone else in danger?"

Johanna doesn't even have to think about how to answer that. "The second one."

"If you're with him, do you think you can get him off a self-destructive track? Or do you think it would be the other way around?"

This is the most brutal conversation Johanna's been in since Sallie told her about her father's suicide. She can shoot anything that looks at Finnick wrong, but will he use protecting her as a flimsy excuse for throwing himself in front of a speeding bullet? Finnick cares enough about her that he might find it easier to get himself killed if she's there.

"I haven't been able to get him off a self-destructive track yet," Johanna's forced to admit. "The best I can do is insist on rescuing him. And since it would have to be a real emergency before I tried carrying him myself, that usually means ordering someone else to do it. Couldn't we have made him the Mockingjay?" She grumbles. "Then he'd have to keep himself in one piece."

"I wish," Rudder says grimly. "Well, what can you tell me?"

"You were right. He is burning out." She shakes her head wonderingly. "He's still on his feet, who knows how. If you put him in the arena, he'll do the job. But if he goes in, I'm going with him. I don't trust him or Katniss to bring him back."

"Is he being reckless?"

Johanna's hesitation speaks volumes. "I was about to say yes, but then...he did rig a draw at fourteen. Is he being more reckless than usual? He always had this weird combination of putting himself in ridiculously dangerous situations, and then walking away from danger like he has nothing to prove."

"What does your gut say?"

"My gut says he's determined to get himself killed protecting someone else. If you put him in the arena, that's what he'll try to do. And that's why he needs someone protecting him."

* * *

"We need to talk about Johanna," is the first thing Finnick says, before Rudder can even begin quizzing him. He raises an eyebrow, allowing Finnick to continue.

Finnick leans forward, hands on his knees. "There are two kinds of volunteers for the Hunger Games. The ones who want to be there, and the ones who are willing to make the sacrifice. If Johanna were in the first category, I wouldn't question her fitness. But she's in the second, and if we can avoid sending someone who's already been reaped twice, captured and tortured once-"

"Was she tortured?" Rudder interrupts.

"She says no, which I take to mean 'only a little'. She doesn't talk about it, which I find very telling. I'd like to keep her out of the arena if possible. That said, if you need her to make up the numbers on the team, she'd definitely be an asset, not a handicap."

"All right, thank you for your input."

"One other thing. Whatever assignment you give her, make it a critical one. She's good at what she does, and there's nothing she cares about more than this fight. I'm only suggesting you keep her out of the arena because I don't want to torture her more than necessary."

"I'll take that into consideration," Rudder says. "Now. Are you going to get anyone killed in the arena?"

Finnick physically rocks backward as if from a blow, then leans in again, eyes glued to Rudder's. "What the hell kind of question is that?!"

"You want to turn this into your personal suicide mission, get yourself killed in battle before the nerve gas gives you a slower death, I won't say I don't understand. But before I let you in there, I have to know that death wish isn't endangering anyone else."

Finnick brings his fist down on the table. "Did Mags endanger anyone else? Have I ever done anything but save everyone around me? Years of sacrifice, and this is the kind of trust I get? From you of all people? I think Katniss trusted me more! She at least wanted me to go in with her. Kind of like she's been paying attention or something."

Rudder waits for the rant to run its course. "I won't ask whether you're trying to get yourself killed. If you give me your word that it won't get anyone else killed, I will trust you. You've earned that. But I am responsible for a team and I do have to ask."

Fuming, Finnick exhales through his teeth. With forced calm, he says, "I give you my word I will keep protecting everyone else. The same way I always have. I'll be responsible, and trustworthy, and use good strategies, and...what else do you need to hear?"

"That's enough. You're dismissed."

Finnick goes straight to Johanna after the interview, his blood up.

"Talking about me behind my back with Rudder? He acts like he doesn't trust me any more."

"Oh, we trust you. With anything except your own skin."

Finnick grabs her shirt by the collar. "What the fuck did you tell him?"

He moves just as she drives her head into his stomach. "I told him a couple months before we came here, I had to send troops to drag you out of a ditch under fire and you yelled at me."

Then the fight really begins. Finnick's rarely angry during these, but now that he is, he has to admit he sees the appeal.

"No one needed to die saving me! If I couldn't make it out on my own, then that was the risk I took."

"While saving someone else!" Johanna punches him, hard enough to raise a bruise without doing any real damage.

"Which is exactly why I don't appreciate being interrogated about whether I'm going to be endangering everyone around me. I've done my best to keep everyone else out of danger, and here I am getting lectured about your decisions."

"You keep taking these risks. Rescuing kids, fine, but there was no need for you to be in District One in the first place."

"I don't understand why you're so dead set on criticizing me about that one." Finnick growls his frustration to hide the sting.

"I'm not ungrateful!" Johanna struggles, but he's got her immobilized. "I'm just trying to protect you from doing anything like that ever again."

"I get that, but why do you have to act like you wish I weren't here doing the things I do? I've never pulled that on you."

"I know." With one last, futile, wrench, Johanna signals him to release her. "But I've never pulled any of those crazy stunts on you either. If you want to have my back, you're welcome to. I've never insisted you leave me in a ditch or disappeared into enemy territory on you without backup."

"I do have your back," Finnick insists. "And if you end up in the arena, I'll have it there."

"If you end up in the arena, I'm not letting anyone kill you, including you." Not a promise. One hundred percent threat.

* * *

Who's heading behind enemy lines is announced at midnight. Each individual who was approved receives a summons to command.

They're taking four medics, and twenty-five military personnel. Four engineers have already set up shop at their destination camp. "It seems like a lot for a stealth mission," Rudder says, "but we need three separate teams: one to take out the outside defenses of the arena and create a breach if possible, and one to enter the arena and rescue the tributes, and one to remain behind and guard the camp, where command and engineering will be. If we can't penetrate the arena, of course, the second team won't be needed."

"Who's going to be on what team?" Brine asks.

"We'll decide that in the morning, when we've seen what the arena looks like. In the meantime, we're going to join the engineers at camp Spearhead. We move by night."

Rudder leads them to the edge of the main camp, where a fleet of hoverbikes is lined up to take them behind enemy lines. Each bike fits one person, two in a pinch, and can skim up to four feet above the ground.

Finnick runs his hand over the the handlebars of one. "Never seen these in person."

"They're useful in the mountains," Lyme says. "More discreet and maneuverable than a full-size hovercraft, but they deal with rugged terrain better than a wheeled vehicle."

"Where's Plutarch?" a voice asks. In the dim light, it takes a minute to place.

Then Johanna erupts. "No! No, you are not coming! Who the fuck thought it was a good idea to bring a damsel in distress? I'm not rescuing you! Oh, shit, I'm going to have to rescue you just to keep _him_ from doing it-"

Lyme interrupts. "Peeta will remain in camp with the other noncombatants, protected just like the engineers and medics."

"You really think it's sane to risk him behind enemy lines? Am I alone here?"

"I'm going," Rudder points out. "And I'm far more important."

Finnick snickers, but has a perfectly bland face by the time Johanna whirls on him. She turns back to Rudder.

" _You_ can protect yourself," she says contemptuously.

"But seeing that I'll be in camp, I'll be very disappointed in all of you if I have to." He pitches his voice to the team as a whole. "The destination is preprogrammed into your hoverbike. Wipe it by pressing this button here on your right handlebar if you're about to be captured."

Lyme distributes the suicide pills without comment. They've all been instructed in their use, and most have been accustomed to carry them for years now. Finnick hopes that if he has to use his, he gets to do it with adrenaline pumping through his blood.

"So where is Plutarch?" Peeta repeats his question.

"He's remaining behind to direct the troops," Lyme explains. "We're not putting all of our command eggs in one basket behind enemy lines."

"Just the victors?" Johanna asks pointedly.

"Like I said. Big family reunion," Finnick says with a wink.

Finnick's heart goes out to Annie and Cashmere, wherever they are, but then he swings his leg over his hoverbike and narrows his focus.

They end up without incident at a cave. It has two chambers, the inner one for work, the outer for a living space.

"Get some sleep," Lyme orders, when they dismount. "First thing in the morning, there'll be a briefing."

Finnick doesn't think he'll be able to obey, but for once he surprises himself. There are a million problems to solve, but he's not alone with them, and even better, Johanna's laying herself down beside him. He crashes almost immediately.

Only the incessant tossing and turning of Johanna beside him wakes him, in the dark of the night.

As soon as he's worked out why he's awake, Finnick shifts up on one elbow. "Can't sleep?" If she's having a flare-up, he'll help distract her.

"She's singing that damn song again," Johanna mutters, and turns onto her back. "Does she ever shut up?"

Finnick widens his attention to take in the sounds he'd been tuning out. Not far away, Katniss is crooning at Peeta. Soothing his nightmares or hers, or both. Finnick listens for a few seconds, then flinches. No, Johanna wouldn't want to hear about a man being hanged.

"Why's he here, anyway?"

"Katniss is under a lot of pressure, and she's alone. She deserves the moral support." Finnick's impressed that Peeta's traveling this far, given the state he was in the last time Finnick saw him. He hopes it means the boy's getting better.

"Meanwhile, you know any better songs about trees?" Finnick asks. Distraction it is, then, if for a different reason.

"Oh, I know plenty of words, but I can't carry a tune."

"Eh, I can't tell the difference." Finnick waves his hand dismissively. "I can't sing either."

"Oh, there's something Wonder Boy can't do?" she needles, making him laugh. "I hardly believe it."

Finnick defends himself. "It's not a survival skill."

"Not a survival skill!" Johanna chortles, and holds up a hand to high-five him. "I like it. If it were important, we'd have learned it by now. Very well." She grows more melancholy. "Here's one my grandmother used to sing."

_All in a wood there grew a tree._

Her voice is low and tuneless, just loud enough to drown out Katniss's song and the memory of Johanna's father, and just soothing enough to convince Finnick's eyes to drift shut again.

_The finest tree you ever did see._

Johanna's here. Finnick wants to reach out and put his hand on her back, offering moral support in return, but they're not quite there yet.

_And the green leaves grew around, around, around._

No matter. She doesn't have to listen to Katniss, and he doesn't have to sleep alone.

_And the green leaves grew around._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Johanna's grandmother's song is a traditional folk song, a variation of Roud 129, because I do not compose lyrics, not even a little bit.


	3. Chapter 3

Rudder doesn't even recognize Camp Spearhead as a cave when he sees it in the morning light. The walls of the inner chamber are plastered with something silvery and shiny, and there are television monitors and computer workstations everywhere. It's just about on par with anything he's seen in District Three. The fact that it's obvious from how crazily cobbled together it is that it was assembled on short notice only makes it more impressive.

"Everyone sit down," Lyme orders. "They're about to begin broadcasting the Games."

It's eight o'clock in the morning, local time.

Rudder sits opposite Lyme at the table, and they go through introductions quickly. Max, Shannon, Led, Jack, the engineers, sitting at their computer terminals. Katniss and Peeta. Julius and Emma, soldiers with some leadership experience. The other soldiers they've brought are in the outer chamber, resting ahead of the big mission. Coral, Mags' spy of many years in the Capitol. Finnick, who promptly interrupts Rudder to describe himself as Mags' other spy. Johanna Mason, sitting next to Finnick and scowling at Katniss. Brine.

"Give us an update, Max," Rudder orders the lead engineer, when they've gone around the table.

"Until now," Max begins, "we've only been able to eavesdrop on the electric signals to the arena. We don't think they know we're listening, and even if they do we don't think they can stop us on such short notice, but we haven't been able to send any of our own. Until late last night. Shannon-" He gestures at her, and she dips her head at the group. "-uncovered a potential exploit. That means, we can send a signal back over the wires to the Capitol and force their computer programs to carry out an action. Not any action, one particular action. We should be able to force the parachutes to drop on our command."

"Almost," Shannon corrects, looking unhappy. "Led and I found a catch first thing this morning. We suspect it's a failsafe against threatening or bribing the vendors. The money has to be in the tribute's account, from an authorized vendor in the Capitol."

Max is crestfallen. "Well. It was gravy anyway. The important part is that we should be able to continue accessing audio and video in the arena, even after the Capitol realizes our team has broken in and they cut the feed. At least, we'll be able to see here at Spearhead what's going on, and we can record and broadcast to Panem later."

"That's something," Rudder says. "Do we have any insights into what the arena looks like?"

"No, sir."

Jack interrupts. "Well, I still think-"

The engineers devolve into squabbling. Rudder and Lyme exchange a long look, followed by a nod. Normally they'd would shut this discussion down, but neither of them's an engineer, and engineers seem to arrive at a lot of their insights by talking. So they'll let it continue for a few minutes.

During the lull in the briefing, the group fragments into smaller conversations. Finnick and Coral are signing at each other about something, and Emma and Julius are bent over whispering. Johanna gets up and starts pacing.

Then Lyme calls them back to order. Johanna gets back in her chair and tilts it way back, till it's resting against the wall.

A few pointed questions from Rudder and Lyme reveal that the engineers have some tentative guesses about the structure of the arena, but nothing certain.

"That's useful enough," Rudder says. "We'll-"

"Finnick! Coral! Are you paying attention?"

Rudder looks quickly at Lyme, then at Finnick, who's still got his hands in mid-air, now with a stubborn look settling in on his face.

Rudder knows that look. "Do you need a minute?" he asks them. 

"This is supposed to be a briefing," Lyme snaps, "not a brainstorming session."

"Yeah, well, some of us are getting information for the first time," Finnick snaps back, "so if we're not getting ideas, I don't know why we were invited. Do you want me to go wait outside with the grunt soldiers?"

"Take a minute," Rudder says, before this can escalate. He doesn't know what's got the two Capitol spies interested, but he can take a guess.

Rudder turns to Max, and asks in a low voice, "If we do find a way of hacking the parachutes, can we drop one on each tribute?"

Max nods. "If we can drop them at all, they'll orient themselves to the trackers. We can feed in the list of tributes, and if they have the money, the parachutes will drop. We'll drop as many as we can until the Gamemakers stop us."

Finally, Finnick and Coral put their hands down. She nods at him, and he starts talking. She's recently gotten a semi-functional tongue prosthesis that helps her swallow, but she still can't really speak.

Finnick turns toward the engineers. "If an authorized Capitol sponsor were here, could they transfer money from their bank account to the tributes' funds? Or, let me put it this way—what information would you need from them?"

"National Bank of Panem?" Max asks. "Username and password, at the very least, and that's if we could get to the login stage."

The engineers have a quick conference, something about a tunnel, and determine that they could get there.

"And that's if they don't have biometric security—we're not set up for that."

Finnick laughs. "Well, of all the things we can mimic, that's not one of them. But we've got a username and password, and we know she wasn't using biometric security when we knew her. She never sponsored tributes, and she's dead, but the money went to her niece, who does like to sponsor."

"You're assuming the niece didn't change the password," Lyme says cautiously.

The engineers snort, and Finnick grins. "I can tell you they hardly ever like to pick difficult passwords, and they never change them."

"We used to encourage that," Max says. "As passive resistance. Build a device that short-circuits and your family suffers, but build in lax security, and the buyers thank you for it."

"I thank you for it," Finnick says. "I used to memorize passwords."

Coral signs something. "She passed them on inside the Capitol and forgot them as soon as she had," Finnick translates. "I still remember a bunch, because I had to hang onto everything I knew for months before I could pass it on to Mags. But Coral knows the name of the niece who inherited, so that should give you the username. First name dot last name."

"I see. Is that what you were doing all those years?" Lyme raises an eyebrow.

"Yes!" Johanna flares, "that's what he was doing. While I was sitting around twiddling my thumbs. What were you doing?"

Lyme, who was bringing home victors who are now fighting for the Capitol, gives a death glare that even Johanna Mason widens her eyes at, before she returns it with a smirk that looks only a little forced.

"So, can we find out if the password still works?" Finnick asks the engineers.

Lyme holds up a cautionary hand. "Without giving away our presence. We're not going in until after we've seen what the arena looks like and come up with a plan, and we can't let them know we're here."

"The bank might flag us if we try to access it from here," Jack says. "We can try to spoof it, but we can't be sure they won't catch it. Once we're ready, though, we should be able to get in and out quickly enough to trigger the parachutes. Assuming the credentials still work."

"Finnick, you pass them on, then," Rudder orders. "We'll try to fire it off as soon as our team enters the arena and we've shown our hand."

"I did pass them on! To Mags, and Pearleye. They were supposed to go to District Three. What the hell happened? I can't be the personal repository of all the information I collected."

Rudder looks at him, unimpressed. "You're asking me? Do I look like Pearleye?"

Finnick pretends to study Rudder's face closely. "Nah," he concludes. "But seriously, this information should have been transferred. To District Three, of all places."

"I wasn't in charge of password transfer," Rudder says. "But my guess is it probably was. How easy do you think it is, getting top-secret information into all the right hands and only the right hands? Someone failed to predict the future somewhere along the line, and this password never made it to these particular engineers. Don't overthink it, boy."

"Do you have a photographic memory?" Led asks Finnick.

"Oh, god, I wish. No, I have to work hard for what I remember. What I have is a trained memory. I was raised by a slave-driving strategist."

When Led just looks confused, Finnick spells out, "Mags."

"Mags? Really?"

Finnick grins. "You never lived with her."

"All right," Max says, "we're ready. Give us the creds."

"Charmion Morningglory. FlowerPetal."

Max types.

"Could that last lowercase 'l' be a numeral '1'? That's pretty common."

Finnick closes his eyes, searching through his memory. "Could be. It was handwritten."

Led bangs his head theatrically against the table. "Just for that, she deserves to have her account hacked."

"All right," Max says. "Thanks. The Games start soon. Even if we can't send a team in, hopefully we'll be able to feed all the tributes before they die."

"All except One and Two, obviously!" Johanna bursts out.

"All," Rudder says. He and Lyme have an arrangement to trade announcing the decisions that would sound biased coming from the other one.

Finnick nods. "They'll have a harder time punishing the tributes from rebellious districts if all the kids get the same thing. And it's good propaganda for us."

Johanna shakes her head, but she doesn't push it.

More updates follow, centered around the location of the arena, the terrain, and the ease of getting a team on-site. Tricky, but doable is the conclusion.

Then they wait.

At nine am, the tributes enter the arena. Everyone around the table leans forward. The screen is all black, and they hold their breaths.

Then, slowly, the picture clears. Tributes in glass bubbles converging on a circle of pedestals.

"Horizontal chutes, not vertical this time."

"Tunnels, maybe."

"No sky. Looks like they're indoors."

"Is that rock?"

"Looks like rock."

"They're in a cave. I bet those are tunnels, then."

"So a big cavern for the Cornucopia, and twenty-two tunnels opening into it."

The countdown begins.

"No land mines. They're keeping the tributes inside their glass bubbles."

The cannon fires. Two tributes run toward the center, everyone else away. Except-

"Oh, shit. They're keeping District One inside the glass during the bloodbath?"

"Ouch."

Tera, a surprisingly fast girl from District Three, reaches her tunnel in the flight from the bloodbath. With only a rumble of warning, a pile of rock is dumped unceremoniously atop her.

Led is in the zone as much as any warrior Rudder's ever seen. He types frantically at his terminal, setting aside his feelings about the girl. "Okay, so they have traps. I'm trying to find-"

"We need to know the locations of the rockfalls," Rudder says urgently, as Gray, the other girl from Three, goes down to a District Two Career. The two boys from Three have just made it into the maze of tunnels branching out from the Cornucopia cavern, but it doesn't escape Rudder's attention that he has no tributes in there and the engineers have four, because he showed up in their district with an army seeking an alliance.

"I'm looking, sir!"

Jack starts scribbling on a note pad, doing calculations. "Maybe we can block them-"

"Wait," Lyme says. Turning to her, Rudder sees her eyes unfocused as she thinks very hard, very fast. "I have one word for you." Everyone waits expectantly. "Ricochet."

The whole room gasps. Then total silence, as they frantically recalculate the wisdom of going in.

"Good thing I brought my trident?" Finnick volunteers.

Rudder raises an eyebrow, and Brine looks disgusted. "You brought your fucking trident? Why?"

"Oh, you should see him," Johanna says, "he carries it everywhere. Totally ridiculous."

Finnick can't stop grinning. "I haven't looked fourteen in a long time, and I don't even have a stylist any more. Someone will always recognize me, but I can't guarantee that everyone will. There are tributes in there who weren't even alive when I won." He smirks. "Good thing I'm going in."

"We're not sure anyone is going in," Rudder says firmly. "We're still gathering information."

"I suppose there's no chance the rocks are fake," Johanna throws out there.

"Painted styrofoam?" Jack considers. "It's a low-budget arena, true, but if it's that low, it'll become obvious pretty quickly. That works for photo shoots, not live combat."

"Didn't think so."

"Katniss?" Lyme asks.

She nods slowly. "If there's the right kind of wood in these mountains, I can make my own bow. Do we have time?"

Lyme snorts. "We're not letting you in until we have a lot more electronics than we have now, so I say yes. It'll be a day or two. We're up in the mountains, there's plenty of wood. I'll take you around later."

"The rest of us should probably make spears," Jason offers.

"Do it. You're still getting firearms if you go, but choose your targets wisely, aim carefully, and never in an enclosed space."

It takes a full day and more before the engineers have enough information and tools for this arena that Rudder and Lyme can be persuaded that an invasion will have enough chance of success that it's worth authorizing.

Rudder makes the announcement.

"We're sending in a rescue team of eight. Katniss and Finnick for the propaganda, and six soldiers. Jason. Emma. Julius. Annabelle. Marcus. Russ." 

Some of the others start to protest, but Rudder raises his voice slightly and carries on.

"You'll all be equipped with firearms and armor, but you're still very vulnerable. I don't need to remind you that the Gamemakers control the terrain, they can see everything you do, hear everything you say."

"Will they be able to shut down the video?" Katniss asks.

"We expect they'll stop broadcasting it once they realize what's happening, but they can't stop the cameras inside from recording, and we're intercepting and will broadcast ourselves.

"There are twenty-two tunnels, one for each tribute. Your hoverbikes are programmed to take you to Tunnel One, it's the closest. It's the one we'll be defending, so on your way out, you'll need to leave through that one if you want to not walk into a Capitol ambush."

"Brine. Johanna. You'll be in charge of two teams defending the arena from the outside. Don't let the Capitol troops in, cover the rescue team and the tributes when they withdraw."

Johanna growls deep in her throat, but she looks appeased by being treated the same as Brine, and neither of them protest their assignment. They both volunteered for arena duty, but neither of them wanted it badly enough to fight for it, and that's why Rudder and Lyme chose not to include them.

"Jack," Lyme orders, "you may distribute the earpieces."

"Lyme and I will be broadcasting to you as long as we can," Rudder tells the soldiers. "Those of you going into the arena, you may lose connection."

"Or if the Gamemakers manage to jam the signal," Max adds.

"We'll send you information on the location of tributes, rockfalls, mutts, traps. If we tell you to move, move."

"If we lose contact," Lyme says, "Odair's in command, then Everdeen if he's incapacitated or separated."

Finnick nods once, Katniss looks like she wants to protest, and a stern look from Lyme shuts them down. Rudder says nothing. That's one decision that's easier to swallow when handed down by Lyme. It wasn't an easy decision to make, not with Rudder's suspicions about Finnick's death wish.

In the end, Lyme had the winning argument: Finnick will listen to Katniss, but Katniss isn't guaranteed to listen to Finnick. So putting Finnick in command gets them the best of both worlds.

Rudder had to agree. Now he's hoping for the best, and wondering what the best is. A quick death now, or a slow one later?

Jack continues distributing devices. "These are jammers. Plant them on the wall, and they'll prevent the compartment directly above from opening and dropping a pile of rock on you, and the compartment below from opening up and swallowing the rock, or the person standing on it."

"We don't know what's below the surface, do we?" Finnick asks.

Rudder has to shake his head. "We assume instant death, but if you're alive and in danger of capture, you know what to do."

"These are are triggers. Like the jammers, they're reusable, but they only have a very small range, so you'll have to retrieve them if you want to use them somewhere else. They'll open the compartment above, or below."

"Sounds useful," Katniss says, turning hers over.

"We only have enough to give you a handful each. Use them wisely. This is the remote control, because you don't want to be standing under a compartment when you trigger it."

When Rudder lets them go and takes his seat in the control room to watch and pass on what information he can, it feels very little different from any other Hunger Games. No matter how well you prepare your tributes, you'll still be sitting in a viewing room, watching them make mistakes and wishing you could have given them another year or ten of preparation.

The only consolation is that, for a little while, these mentors will be able to communicate with their...Rudder realizes he's still thinking of them as tributes. But then, he's always thought of his tributes as soldiers.

In the inner chamber of the cave, Rudder and Lyme sit with the engineers, with headphones on, mics at the ready, eyes glued to the screens. Brine and Johanna with their squads are escorting the rescue team to the arena. Then they'll back off and try to keep any counterattacks from getting too close.

If all goes well, the control room won't have any updates until the Capitol does, when the rescue team appears on camera. They're maintaining radio silence until then.

Rudder's eyes move over screen with red lettering that marks the location of each tribute. He prepares to relay up-to-the minute information. 1F. 7M. 3M...

Several tributes are dead already, to rockfalls or Careers.

Lyme is watching Tunnel One like a hawk.

"Now," she calls. Shannon taps a key.

All over the arena, parachutes drop. Bread and water, for every tribute. Coral cheers, wordlessly, pitilessly.

Under that distraction, the rescue team creeps in. Rudder watches. This is the real test. Will the jammers work?

Katniss doesn't want to let him, but Finnick insists on going first. He plants the first jammer on the rock wall near the mouth of the tunnel, presses his remote control, and waits. Ready to leap back at any second, he takes a tentative step into the danger zone.

The jammer holds.

Finnick holds up a hand forbidding the others to follow. "It could still be a trick. They could be holding back, planning to trap the whole group inside the arena and then drop the rocks on the last one to enter."

Katniss tilts her head, touching her ear.

Lyme turns to the engineers. "Can you tell?"

While they're waiting, Rudder begins snapping out district numbers and tribute locations to Finnick, who relays them to the team.

"Not for certain," Shannon finally answers, typing as fast as she can.

"We can't be sure," Lyme says, activating the microphone.

Katniss shakes her head at Finnick. Then she has an idea. "We have one other thing we can try. Get back."

Finnick rejoins the rest of the rebels at the entrance, and Katniss steps forward into the tunnel to plant a trigger near where the trap should be. She makes sure she's well back when she activates it. The rocks start to fall right on cue, and Finnick activates his jammer just a second later. They stop.

With a couple of false starts, they're able to force the rocks into the compartment below, then back up again, and convince themselves that their jammer can override their trigger.

"Good thinking," Finnick praises.

Rudder takes a deep breath as Katniss crosses the threshold into the Cornucopia cavern, but the real danger has just begun. Now the Gamemakers know what the rebels are capable of, and they must be frantically working to counter the invasion.

It's a race to get to the surviving tributes before the Gamemakers can take them out. The only reason the rescue team has a chance at all is because the budget is so low, the Gamemakers have a limited ability to reach some of the tributes in hiding.

Even so, the control room sees the incoming attacks before they hit, and they watch tribute after tribute die before they can be rescued. Most are taken out by rockfalls, but the worst is when Nash dies. The Three tributes have been reluctant to leave their hiding places since Tera was the first rockfall casualty, but the Gamemakers have another trick up their sleeve.

Shortly after the parachutes fell loaded with food, the parachute system was disabled entirely. Max and his team haven't been able to get in. But after a lull, another parachute starts to fall.

As one, Lyme and Rudder turn sharply to look at Max.

"Not us."

Helpless, they watch as the parachute descends just outside the niche in which Nash is hiding. It hisses when it touches down, and Nash turns toward it curiously. Then a white smoke starts to emanate, and his eyes go wide.

He's twitching on the ground before his escape attempt carries him more than a few feet away. A cannon fires.

The control room resounds with cries of grief and dismay. That's three of their children dead because of this alliance with Four.

"There's no way we can broadcast sound to the whole arena?" Lyme asks, in frustration. "Warn the ones who are safe to stay put, guide the ones who aren't?"

Max shakes his head. "We have reception only, except for the parachutes. And not even that any more—they shut down parachutes completely within the first ten minutes."

"If only there were one convenient security hole in each part of the code," Shannon adds. "We're lucky they were sloppy enough to get us the openings we have."

"I'm not even sure this year's arena has the capability to broadcast anything but cannons. If the Gamemakers could warn the Careers, surely they would have by now," Jack points out. 

While they're talking, Rudder is repeatedly pressing the talk button on his microphone, trying to warn Finnick about the nerve gas in the arena.

"Anything?" Lyme asks.

"We've lost them," Rudder says.

Just then, Finnick freezes, frowning. Immediately, everyone else freezes, and Katniss looks at him.

Finnick puts a hand to his ear. "Static." Then he looks around, and Rudder can see the wheels in his brain turning. "Wait here," he orders them. Then, slowly, he begins to take one step at a time. "Keep signaling me," he orders.

He stops at the mouth of a tunnel, careful to avoid the trap. "Nerve gas!" Finnick exclaims. "Where?"

Rudder repeats himself as often as he can, condensing his message into single, informative words.

Finally, Finnick shakes his head and returns to the others. "The signal's not very clear. But the tunnel's facing the right direction, and it must lead to the outside. I think I caught fourteen, upper level."

"That's bad," Katniss says. "It'll sink."

"We'll have to block it off," Finnick concludes, grimly. A minute later, he's back at the opening, trying to figure out if there are any living tributes up there with the nerve gas. But the signal's gone. "We'll have to take the risk."

No one can disagree. A trigger, a rockfall, and anyone up in the tunnels branching off of tunnel Fourteen is trapped with the gas.

They move on, in search of more tributes they can rescue.

"How did they have a parachute with nerve gas?" Peeta wonders. "I thought parachutes had good things."

"If you're far enough gone," Rudder points out, "gas is a good thing. Still, they've never done it before. They can't be loading up new parachutes, right?" he asks Max. "No one's on site."

"They have done it," Lyme corrects him. "Before your time. One of the District One tributes was alone and dying in agony, and her fund went to putting her out of her misery."

On screen, Mister "I memorized all the tapes" is telling the others the same story. 

Lux is the only District Three tribute left, after the rockfall, the Career, and the nerve gas, and everyone breathes a sigh of relief when he joins the flock being shielded and herded by armed soldiers.

They haven't had to open fire yet, but as they pass the mouth of one of the tunnels branching off of Eight, a spear flies at them out of nowhere. It penetrates Emma's upper left arm, and she cries out in pain.

Just as quickly, Julius fires at the moving figure, but it ducks into another tunnel fork before the bullet arrives. Even so, the sound of a body falling with a cry comes a second later. It's too dark to see clearly in the arena itself, but in the control room, the engineers are changing the camera angle and enhancing the picture.

The downed tribute is Reed, a thirteen-year-old boy from district Eleven. Replay shows he was trying to make a dash toward safety, then got hit by friendly fire during the ambush.

Lyme curses. Max covers his face with his hands. Rudder starts counting, silently, toward 729. The number of tributes he's watched die. By now, he's always under control long before he reaches it.

Julius is just realizing what he's done, and starting to sprint toward the fallen boy, when Finnick grabs his arm. "There's an ambush and a trap between us and them. That's why the Careers took the risk of firing on us at all—they knew if we moved on them, the arena would save them."

"But I-"

"Emotions later," Finnick says, his grip tight. "You fired in self-defense. Either we go down that tunnel with a plan, or not at all." He looks at Katniss.

Katniss looks at Emma, who's leaning back against the wall with a pained grimace, trying not to fall. "Go," Emma gasps. "Don't worry about me."

With a jammer to hold the mouth open for them, the rebels leapfrog down the tunnel, looking for tributes to rescue and enemy soldiers to attack. Reed is dead when they reach him, and not even Finnick can revive him.

What the combatants don't see, though, and shows plainly on the electronic layout of the arena that Rudder and Lyme are studying, is that the advance down the tunnel has split the Career pack in two. Since they had manned each side of the tunnel for the ambush, the approach of Katniss's group has forced Districts One and Two to flee in opposite directions.

Nor does Rudder blame them: courage is one thing, but with two against six, and spears against guns, not choosing favorable ground would be stupid. What was an arena has now become a battle, with battle tactics.

Rather than hunt them, Finnick and Katniss agree to keep the rescue team together and looking for tributes. Their success will be measured in how many children they bring home, not in how many enemy soldiers they kill.

Knowing that there are ambushes lying in wait, though, Finnick insists on reconnoitering the terrain before any advance. "We have to move fast, though," Katniss says. "Those cannons keep firing-"

Finnick's unimpressed. "At this point, we don't even know if they're real. If I were a Gamemaker, I'd either not fire cannons, to keep us looking for living tributes who are all dead, or I'd fire a bunch of cannons to make us think the living tributes are dead and get us to leave them behind. And we have no way of knowing which it is."

"Your boy's sneaky," Lyme admires. "Much sneakier than you." She gives Rudder a look that tells him she's remembering how they met. How he came to her backstage, before their first public fight in the Capitol, shortly after he became a victor.

_"I don't know if they've told you I'll throw this fight, but I won't. If you want to win, you're going to have to beat me."_

Over the years, they traded wins, his family died one by one, and they never spoke of it, but she sought him out when the war came and she was looking to defect. They trust each other.

"How do you expect us to decide when to stop, then?" Katniss is asking Finnick, when Rudder comes back from memory lane.

"What, and tell the Gamemakers?" Finnick winks. "They can hear us, you know. We'll play it by ear."

"I think that means they'll try to find a signal and ask us through their earpieces," Rudder says.

"Ooh, you've learned a few things about sneaking," Lyme ribs him. "Are the cannons accurate?" she asks the engineers.

Led answers. "So far. I hope he hasn't given them any ideas, but I think the cannons are tied to the trackers and can't be overridden. One of the cost savings, I guess."

Moving around in the narrower part of the tunnels, the rebels are forced to hold their fire. It levels the playing field a little, but they still have the advantage of numbers. Katniss has her bow, Finnick his trident, and the other soldiers spears.

Turning a corner, they hear a sound, and everyone stops to strain their ears. Enemy or rescue?

Finnick plants a jammer and a trigger on the wall near a compartment. Then he calls out, announcing the presence of the rescue team.

Nothing.

So he gestures with his head, and the team follows him away. Katniss peers curiously at his face, knowing something is up, but knowing that he won't give away his plan.

It becomes clear when the District One tributes take the opportunity to follow them, believing their guards are down. But Katniss, light on her feet and moving quietly, has doubled back at Finnick's urging and pointed her remote control.

Matte, the male tribute, is crushed under the rockfall, and Ruby's trapped behind it.

"He's always had a good head for terrain," Rudder observes, as the rescue team continues on its way.

"I can't believe he memorized the locations of all those traps," Shannon marvels. "He was going over the arena with us before he went in, but I never expected he'd remember this much. They haven't been caught in a single one."

"That's my boy," Rudder says.

Leaving her dead partner, Ruby goes on the move. She's circling around, trying to find a way to sneak up on the rescue team and take another one out. She's got a couple of javelins in her left hand and one in her right. She can still do some serious damage, even on her own. The District Two tributes, at some remove, are doing the same. 

As soon as the rescue team picks up the boy from Seven, the last surviving outlying tribute, Rudder and Lyme start signaling every member on the team, trying to get through. With no sign that anyone's heard so much as a flicker of static, Finnick guides them toward the Cornucopia, which Rudder hopes is in search of that tunnel where he got a signal before. But all of the kids are weak from hunger, Lux is wobbling on his feet, and dragging them all over the arena has done none of them any good.

"Julius, you're with me," Finnick orders. "We're going to look for Emma."

But he takes them down the wrong tunnel for that, and Rudder's hopes are confirmed. But long before they reach their destination, they pass by Ruby, and her ears prick up. The Two tributes are still far away, navigating the maze.

"One-F," Rudder and Lyme insist, in case some miracle gets their warning through. "One-F, to your right. One-F, to Finnick's right."

No reaction. They watch, helpless, as Finnick and Julius walk into an ambush.

The spear penetrates Julius' guts. Rudder curses as Finnick's reflexes get mixed up between gun and trident, and Ruby gains three feet on him, passing her next javelin to her throwing hand, before he's got his gun pointed squarely between her eyes.

Normally Rudder would say to aim for the torso, but she's frozen at close range, Finnick doesn't know if she's wearing armor, and his firing options are limited.

_Good boy. Use the gun to take her prisoner, and don't fire it._

"Take your hands off your spears," Finnick orders. His hands are steady and his voice is steady. Rudder relaxes a little.

Ruby doesn't move. Her eyes shift from his face to his gun, back to his face.

"Put them down. Hands in the air." On the ground, Julius writhes.

Her eyes flicker over his shoulder. Finnick tenses.

 _Fall for that and I'll kill you myself,_ Rudder promises.

Finnick doesn't turn around. "You have until the count of three before I fire. We'll take you alive, no torture, I don't care what they told you."

"This isn't Cashmere," Lyme murmurs.

"He knows what he's doing," Rudder tells her.

"Three. Two. O-"

The gunshot takes Rudder by surprise as much as Ruby.

"Replay slo-mo!" he snaps.

They watch the bullet tear through her exposed throat and continue on through the air until it hits the ground in a flurry of rock shrapnel. Ruby falls.

"That was-" Rudder can't find the words.

"Luck or a good aim," Lyme says tightly, grudgingly. "But it's going to put an end to any hope of turning District One. Firing on an unarmed—or at least no firearm—opponent?"

"He already tried turning them by sparing their tribute," Rudder reminds her. "As for the other...he had enough space behind her, angled it right, went for a spot that didn't have bone or armor. And luck, as always." He's thinking of the noose Finnick took out a District Two tribute with, when he was fourteen.

"Finnick!" Katniss's voice.

Finnick's pressing his back to a wall, circling the area with his gun pointed out, reluctant to move too quickly in a trap-ridden arena.

"Katniss, stay where you are!"

Once he's secured the area, Finnick lowers his gun, clicks it into safety, and retreats back to the team. "Julius is alive but down. Ruby, I mean One-F, is down. I don't know where her partner is. Can you help Julius while I stand guard?"

"I can try."

"The rest of you stay here," Finnick orders.

Katniss kneels by Julius and inspects both spear wounds, front and back. She murmurs to him, but he's too far gone to hear her. "I don't dare take it out. He needs a professional."

"Mercy kill," Finnick asks brusquely, "or try to bring him with us and hope we don't do more damage carrying him?"

Katniss looks miserable. "Bring him, I guess. At least there's a chance." Before rising, she administers one of the shots of morphling she brought, saying, "I hope that helped more than it hurt. The problem with only learning a little is that it leaves you knowing how to do something, not when to do it."

"Tell me about it," Finnick says. He hauls Julius over his shoulder. "Let's go."

Just before Finnick gets them to a spot where they expect to be able to hear from command, Lyme nods at Rudder. "You try first. Let him keep it a secret if he wants to."

As usual, Finnick does. He gives no sign of learning that all the remaining tributes who want to be rescued have been, and pushes on out of range again. Then, when it won't look suspicious to the Gamemakers, he stops, and turns to Katniss. "Look, this is as far as I feel comfortable going without getting lost. Like I said, it was either this tunnel or One that we left Emma in. If you give the word, I suggest turning back and trying One."

One is their exit tunnel. Katniss gives Finnick a look, knowing something is afoot, and she either figures it out herself or decides to trust him. "All right. You've done a good job navigating us so far."

Finnick shrugs. "I've stuck to the parts I'm sure of, and even so, we've gotten ambushed several times. Let's go."

"What's he going to do about Emma?" Led wonders.

Rudder, who knows his boy, guesses, "Get everyone started toward safety, and go back for her himself."

But Julius, unconscious and still with the team, gets priority. Finnick, Marcus, and Russ take turns carrying him, while they herd the tributes out of the Cornucopia cavern toward Tunnel One.

Each step brings them one step closer to safety, when suddenly the boy from Seven strays a little too close to a trap. Marcus shouts, everyone whips around to look, and Finnick, who's standing closest, lunges.

Just in time, Finnick manages to knock him out of range, but lands badly himself, with a cry. Rudder flinches inside—he taught Finnick to roll when he landed, not to jerk his left arm out like that. But then, they may not have covered how to land in a pile of rocks hurtling down from above.

The rocks are falling hard and fast as Marcus and Katniss drag Finnick away from the edge. Had he been another few inches to the left, it's not clear they could have saved him at all. 

Finnick screams at their touch, and he pulls away the moment he's free. His gun is left crushed where he dropped it.

"Finnick? Finnick! Are you all right?"

Finnick can't answer right away, but finally he nods and pulls himself into a sitting position. Katniss reaches toward him, but he flinches away.

In the distance, screaming can be heard.

"Emma?" Katniss raises her head from Finnick, torn between the wounded members of her team.

"Mutts," Annabelle says, grimly. She raises the point of her gun and aims it in the direction of the sound.

"She's correct," Led confirms to Rudder and Lyme. "Panthers. Catamounts."

"Mutts?!" Lyme cries. "Why now? They've been desperate to kill everyone since the rescue team revealed itself."

"The Gamemakers must have had a pre-programmed schedule for their release. They probably only just managed to override it. So much has been automated this year."

Rudder scans the screens, looking for a better angle. There. He can see Finnick's left arm dangling limply.

Finnick cradles his elbow in his right hand, moving gingerly. "Did something—to my arm."

His breath is coming in gasps.

"We've got to get out of here." The screaming is getting louder. From the control room, the viewers can see that the team has some time to get to a more favorable position to face the mutts, but with the echoes inside, it's got to be hard to judge distances by sound.

"All right," Katniss decides. "Jason and Marcus, you two take Finnick-"

Finnick shakes his head emphatically. "I'm just going to sit up there—and wait it out."

He gestures with his chin toward Tunnel Eighteen, the one that's high off the ground, accessible only by a set of steps carved into the rockface.

"It's blocked off," Katniss says. "Does anyone have a trigger? Maybe you can get out."

But no one does. There's only one device left, and it's a jammer.

"Finnick, I can't leave you behind-"

"Katniss, we've got to get the kids out. I won't be a liability. I'll be fine."

In the distance, the screaming of mutts can be heard. "Katniss, go!" Without waiting for acknowledgement, Finnick turns and starts limping toward the tunnel.

How he's going to get up there, Rudder doesn't know, but Katniss nods toward Marcus. He takes the jammer, and Finnick's arm.

"Not that side-" Finnick gasps when Marcus makes for his injured left arm, but he leans gratefully against the other man on his right side. He can barely move on his own, and the only way he climbs up to the tunnel entrance is with Marcus hauling him up.

Rudder holds his breath, because the inviting stairs are directly below a trap, but Finnick wields the remote control in his right hand, and the jammer he planted earlier on the wall holds. No rocks crush them.

From the corner, Peeta makes a sound like he wants to say something, but no one looks away from the screens.

On the center left screen, the District Two tributes charge the mutts. They know one of them is supposed to make it home. Now maybe they both die because control is slipping through the Gamemakers' hands, but at least if the rescue is successful, they're not both left standing at the end, wondering if they're still meant to try to kill each other.

Rudder gives a nod of acknowledgement to the two warriors and turns his eyes back to Finnick.

He's slumped against the tunnel entrance, catching his breath. Marcus is standing guard, but Finnick nudges him.

"They're coming. You'd better get going."

He turns, surprised. "But-"

"You get those kids out of here." Finnick breathes, looking frustrated at not being able to argue properly. "Or it's all for nothing."

Marcus stares at him a minute longer, making sure he's not going to expire on the spot, and sees the point. "We'll send someone back for you and Emma once the kids are safe."

Finnick jerks his head in a nod, trying to look in better shape than he is.

Once he's alone, Finnick does something with his remote control. The rocks fall directly in front of the tunnel mouth where he's sitting to the cavern floor, some twenty feet below. Then the compartment below opens, capturing all the rock for re-use, but it stays open, jammed. The stairs are gone.

Rudder shakes his head. Finnick's burned all his bridges to the rest of the arena. Even if the others do come back for him, they couldn't reach him now.

They can't, though. The mutts are closing in on them as they flee. Katniss and the other soldiers have to turn and hold up the rear. They fire bullets when the mutts are approaching in the distance, and arrow and spears when they're closer. Ricochet still gets Russ in the hip.

It's going to be a bloodbath.

Behind them, the children try to escape as fast as they can. Not all of them can run, and not all know where they're going. Lux, lagging behind, gets a chunk bitten out of his leg, and the mutt is only just in time driven away from eviscerating him, by an arrow from Katniss.

With Russ and Finnick out of carrying action, Marcus has to set down Julius and take up Lux. Some of the stronger kids start dragging Julius by the legs, while the soldiers form a defensive line in front of them and cover their retreat with every weapon they have. Slowly, the tide starts to turn. As mutt after mutt falls, they begin to fall back before charging anew.

Still sitting at the mouth of Tunnel Eighteen, Finnick has no weapon he can use. His gun was lost in the rockfall, and he's too injured to wield his trident. When a pack of mutts reaches the Cornucopia cavern, only the chasm he's opened below him protects him.

The first panther to try to leap across and up to Finnick joins the rocks far below. Its shrieks of pain deter the others.

For a while.

Engineered for bloodlust, the mutts can't hold back for long, and soon they're leaping again, frustrated but persistent. It's only a matter of time before one reaches Finnick.

"How much control over the mutts do the Gamemakers have?" Lyme wonders. "Do they just breed them, or do they control their moves afterward? We could never tell from watching."

"That's because it varies from year to year," Max says. "General Heavensbee told us. Why?"

Suddenly, Rudder sees what Lyme saw. "Because they're pulling away from the rescue team toward easier prey. They don't like being shot at, and they smell blood in the water if they can just get to Finnick."

Lyme nods. "There's no way that's in the Gamemakers' best interests. They need cannon fodder to take down the larger group after they run out of ammunition."

"But it is in the mutts' best interests," Max finishes her train of thought. "Huh. Well, it's too bad there aren't any signals going to them that we can hack, but we probably couldn't anyway. And it's buying Katniss time to get the tributes out."

Finally, Peeta can't hold it in any more. "So we're going to leave him there? We're not going to do anything?"

"We can't jeopardize the operation," Lyme says. "We'll get him out as soon as we can. Emma too. She's as safe as she can be, she's got a rockfall between her and the mutts. He's got that chasm."

"Rudder!"

Behind his impassive face, Rudder is making calculations. By necessity, they've cut this mission close, with very little leeway. Everyone's in place, everyone accounted for. He doesn't have the flexibility to make these kinds of adjustments.

"Damn." Finnick is peering around at one of the other tunnels, which he can barely see from here. Number Seventeen. "Is that the one we disabled?"

He tries lifting himself off the ground, but the experiment fails almost immediately as he crumples again and leans dizzily back against the cave wall, eyes closed.

A foot below him, a mutt scrabbles against the cliff wall, finds purchase. In a split second, it's hauling itself over the lip of the tunnel, baring its fangs just inches from Finnick's knee.

Weakly, with his good arm, Finnick shoves his trident at the mutt. It falls, shrieking and spitting its fury, thrown off balance but not impaled. If two of them can make it at the same time, or one just moves too fast...

Gradually, Katniss's team is progressing down Tunnel One toward open air.

"Rudder! He saves everyone, and we leave him there to die, alone? You can't leave someone behind in the arena-"

Peeta breaks off, aware that the others are looking everywhere except at him, trying not to show the pity and shame in their eyes.

"We'll get him out as soon as we can," Lyme says, understandingly but firmly. "He's right: the kids come first, then Katniss. Rudder, your thoughts on whether it's time to start advancing the backup troops closer to the Tunnel One? The rescue team's looking like they'll make it."

Rudder realizes he's tapping his fingers on the table as he thinks, and he stops.

Even if Finnick's sure the Capitol wants him alive, he has to know that he's vulnerable, pinned there with a pile of rock behind him and mutts closing in below. He does know, or he wouldn't have made Marcus leave.

But Finnick signed up for this. The kids didn't.

"I'll go out and talk to Johanna and Brine, get a read on the situation." Rudder stands up.

"In person?" Lyme raises her eyebrows.

"Nothing more we can do here," Rudder points out, "and I don't have video outside the arena. I'd like to get my own take on the tactical situation."

He refuses to explain himself further, and Lyme shrugs, though she obviously thinks he's micromanaging. "Suit yourself. If you're not back, I'm going to start giving them orders as soon as I see the situation change."

When Rudder returns, Finnick is still in the same position, leaning his head against the wall. His left arm dangles uselessly, and his right arm is drawn across his chest in an awkward, hunched-over position.

The mutts are getting closer. One leaps, snarling, to within a few inches of his face, but falls again. Finnick doesn't flinch, but Rudder sees his right shoulder move. He's preparing to go down fighting.

On the other side of the arena, Katniss is still aiming her arrows at any mutt that gets too close. She's flanked by soldiers with spears. Only three mutts are still holding their ground, ducking for cover and trying to approach without getting shot. The others are down or have fled. 

The tributes are running or hobbling as fast as they can.

"We're here!" Johanna's voice comes out of the speaker into the control room. "Tunnel One!" Shouting, gunfire. "The first tributes have started to emerge. We're covering their retreat!"

Rudder presses the button for Brine's earpiece, speaks quietly into his mic. "Proceed. Repeat, proceed."

Rapidly, Rudder gets a status report from Lyme and from Max. Both District Two tributes are down, cannons fired. No victor for what should be the last Hunger Games. Russ is staggering, his eyes rolling up in his head, but almost at the exit. He's going to make it.

"Finnick!"

The shout draws all eyes in the control room to the screen on the lower right.

Finnick looks around wildly at the sound of his name, then startles at the bursts of gunfire. One, two, three, the cats directly in front of him arch mid-air, stiffen, and fall.

"Stay down, Finnick, I'm coming!"

Finnick's head snaps directly to the right, where Brine is emerging from Tunnel Seventeen. Sheer panic crosses Finnick's face.

"Brine! Get back, go!" His shoulder makes a motion like he wants to wave Brine back, but he keeps his arms pressed close to his body.

Two steps outside the tunnel, Brine disappears under a ton of rock, burying him in a matter of seconds. One cry from him and then it's over.

Then all hell breaks loose. Rudder doesn't know where to look. Chasms opening, rocks falling, death shrieks from mutts as the ground collapses beneath them.

The control room stares at the carnage, stunned.

Only the aftermath starts to make sense. Finnick has risen, stiffly, to his feet, remote control in hand, and stands surveying the damage he's done. Below him, the mutts have been wiped out by the dozen. Only on the far side of the cavern do any remain, and they're hindered in their charge by the alternating piles of rock and gaping compartments in the floor. Behind him, the tunnel is suddenly clear. Now it's Seventeen that's blocked.

Peeta whispers, "He said...it was disabled..."

Rudder's heart can sink no lower. "He lied." Finnick lied. And since when do those two words not go together?

"What the hell are you doing here?!" Finnick calls in anguish toward the pile of boulders that cover what used to be Brine.

Then he turns, leaning on his trident, and they watch as he limps out through Tunnel Eighteen.


	4. Chapter 4

Johanna's been bantering with Brine for hours now, both of them covering their tension as they patrol and wait for orders, and trade the occasional, "Did you see that?" or "Did that sound like-?"

She jumps when an unmistakable sound breaks through the quips. As always, Rudder looms and gets straight to the point.

"Brine. Take a hoverbike to the arena. You know where Tunnel Seventeen is?"

Brine nods, all business. "Yes, sir."

"The entrance to Eighteen is blocked off. Finnick's on the other side. Get in and get out, fast. Wait until I give the word."

Johanna whirls. "I can go-"

"You're not strong enough," Rudder says, in a voice that brooks no argument, and Johanna yields for the same reason she gave Ashe the order to go instead of Mickee.

Brine's face lights up. "Is he unconscious? Can I rub it in that I had to carry him?"

"Delay any longer, and you won't be able to rub anything in ever again. He's conscious for now, but he can't walk without help. Go now. Move fast and stay low. Don't get caught."

Brine ducks his head in acknowledgement, and he's on his way. Johanna watches his disappearing back for about one second before Rudder demands her attention.

"Johanna, you're in full command. We've used up most of our element of surprise, and the enemy is diverting troops to the arena. I need you to advance your position by two hundred fifty meters and prepare for combat. Keep a rear guard on alert, though. I don't want them slipping in between your squad and camp."

"Yes, sir." Johanna channels her worry into anger, and anger into focus. She can't fret over Finnick, she has to show that she can get her job done as well as any man. He's no Peeta; he and Brine should be able to handle anything that comes their way. And she's no Katniss, falling apart over a boy and throwing everything away to rescue him.

She is this fight, and this fight is her.

One more time, Johanna checks her gun. Safety, ammunition, everything is exactly as it should be. Raising her voice, she barks the order to march.

* * *

Being carried back with someone else in command is humiliating, but there are other wounded soldiers, and why did Johanna think she would be exempt? Bodies break, even the best.

It's only that she has to admit to the man hauling her to safety that she wasn't shot. Somehow, that seems more respectable than tearing up your body yourself. A sudden flare of pain in her back, an involuntary wrench in the wrong direction away from the pain, and a stumble. Then lying immobile on the ground, her back and groin on fire.

Now she's crippled, the battle is over, and she's trying to shout and demand a report, but she's dizzy with her head hanging over someone else's shoulder, and her hoarse voice won't carry.

Listening through the pain, Johanna manages to gather that the whole of Camp Spearhead is being evacuated, wounded and all, in a race back to the front lines, before they fall into enemy hands.

Johanna badly wants to help, but she's forced to admit her part is done. She covered the retreat of the arena team and the tributes they managed to rescue, and now it's up to everyone else to carry out the next step.

She never quite loses consciousness, though she finds herself wanting to—hoverbikes are not meant for carrying someone who can't sit up, and she vomits over the side from the motion sickness—but she bites her tongue, hard, and hangs in there. The hell of it is, she's been in worse pain, but she could power through the ghosts of her Scorpio stings. Now it's pure muscle damage.

Being dumped into a medical tent at least means an end to the flight for her life and the threat of vomiting again, but it brings a new kind of suffering: poking at her wounds. The paramedic conducting triage prods her back, ignoring the half-gasp, half-scream that breaks out past her clenched teeth, to check that her back isn't broken, asks her two quick questions, and moves on. She's not going to die.

Now if she could just get to her painkillers. She reluctantly left most of them with her pack, but she took a leaf out of Finnick's tree and secured some down the front of her shirt. Now it's just a matter of teasing them out, face down on the ground, with her uncooperative muscles.

She's had torn muscles before; she's seen it happen in battle and on the log drives and in the lumberjack camps. She knows as well as anyone that you can permanently cripple yourself from a minor-seeming injury, but she also knows that sometimes the worst pain and what feels like buckets of blood come from wounds that you've forgotten about a month later.

Shoving the pill down her throat past the nausea and the lack of water to swallow it with, Johanna starts racking her memory for anything that will help her fall asleep, revved up and exhausted, frantic over everything she doesn't know about the outcome of the mission and in pain, waiting for the sedation to kick in. Maybe some of her grandmother's songs. It worked the other night, put both her and Finnick to sleep, and that's saying something.

She's trying to remember the words to the one about the wolf, trying out the howling in the chorus under her breath and figuring out how many notes to hold it to make it sound right, when the voice she was too sick and hurt to go looking for or even asking for comes from the entrance to the tent.

And he sounds angry.

"Congratulations, if you wanted a dead victor you got one-"

"Get your injuries seen to, and finish reporting to me later. That's an order."

Rudder's voice, flat as ever.

Johanna's voice, hoarse from screaming orders and battle cries on the field, is no more than a croak, barely audible over the groans from the patients and the orders being snapped by the medics, but she calls to Finnick until he hears her.

"Johanna! You all right?"

She can't lift her head, but even if he doesn't sound any better than she feels, he's moving around under his own steam, and that's something. "Fine," she grunts. "Back."

"I'll be back," he promises, and she's not quite sure if he got the message about her injury, but it doesn't matter. She scoots over, making room between her and the unconscious body of Lux next to her, and waits.

No sooner does he sink—a graceful word for something that's barely short of a collapse—to the ground beside her than Katniss shows up.

"Finnick! They said you made it, but I had to see for myself—are you all right?"

"Dislocated shoulder," Finnick gets out, "maybe broken." Johanna can hear the adrenaline and anger already wearing off, shakiness replacing them. "Not fatal." A weak joke, but Finnick all the way through.

"You were using yourself as bait, drawing the mutts off us. I thought you were just finding a safe—safer—place to wait out the mission after you were wounded. We shouldn't have left you!"

"No, you did the right thing." Finnick's fingers claw at the fabric over his knee like he needs something to hold onto. He's sitting up, Johanna suspects, just because anything else will put pressure on his shoulder. "Sometimes you have to leave people behind."

Mags. _I should have taken her._ "Like you," Johanna suggests to Katniss, "you could leave us behind any time, starting now."

"Johanna!" Katniss turns to her. "Are you-"

"Also not fatal, unless you can die of other people's bullshit. Congratulations on making it out unwounded, though. Good job. I don't know how you keep doing it."

"We'll be fine," Finnick says, trying to keep the peace even in his condition. "Some medical treatment and some sleep and everything will be okay. Katniss. It'll be okay. We'll talk more later, okay?"

"All right," Katniss hesitates. Finnick gives her the encouraging nod of someone who desperately needs to be alone and is trying to be polite about it. "Later?"

"I promise."

"Katniss," Johanna calls after she takes two steps away, remembering. Katniss pauses. "Make yourself useful and find us our stuff. The packs we brought here." She needs to know how many painkillers she has left, how to ration them. If the rest disappeared from her pack, then it's just the two pads she keeps in her shirt.

"You know," Finnick sighs, "I think if she were ever going to get along with me, you would ruin it every single time."

"Yeah," says Johanna, "and fish might start hunting bears, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for her to appreciate you. Speaking of medical treatment—you haven't gotten any?"

"No, it's called triage. We've got four medics to like thirty wounded."

Johanna's outraged enough to finally lift her head. It doesn't hurt as much as she expected. "You broke your shoulder and they didn't even-" She can see now that he's sitting hunched over, holding his left elbow gingerly with his right hand. Grey in the face and half dead.

"Johanna, we have kids we're trying to save. I didn't go into that arena to watch them die in a tent."

"And I didn't go into the arena at all."

Finnick looks like he wants to say something, but his jaw is rippling with clenched muscles, trying to hold it together. She's seen that look on him before.

Growling, Johanna reaches for her painkiller pad. "Here. It works."

"You need it more," he insists, but she shakes her head and thrusts it at him. "At least wait until Katniss gets back. Then we'll know how much you have left."

She hates that she's tempted, but she took one earlier and now she's empty-headed and stupid, too tired to fight. She'll wait, then.

Johanna doesn't mean to fall asleep while waiting on Katniss, but she opens her eyes, and the light coming in through the tent entrance is considerably dimmer. Damn painkillers knocking her out again. But at least she'll be herself again in an hour or so. Better than the shit the Capitol had her hooked on.

Her pack is tucked up against her chest, and Johanna rummages through it quickly to confirm that everything important is still inside.

Tentative movements of one body part at a time reveals that, while she's shaky, weak, and famished, the pain has definitely subsided to tolerable levels. She cackles hoarsely. "Man, Finnick, this is the good stuff. Please tell me you took some while I was out."

But no, Finnick looks worse than ever. If he's moved at all since they talked, she can't tell. She can hear his breathing coming hard, punctuated by the occasional whimper.

Gritting her own jaw, Johanna works herself into a sitting position. She finds that if she strains certain muscles to avoid moving the injured ones, she can get herself up off the ground. Finnick moans and twists slightly so that his left arm is farther away from her, where she can't bump it accidentally.

"Finnick?"

"Alive."

Johanna peers around at his shoulder to inspect it. "Haven't they set it yet? It doesn't look set."

"Triage."

"Fucking hell." She grabs the blister pad she fell asleep clutching. "Finnick, I'm serious. If you won't take it voluntarily, I'll make sure you take it involuntarily."

"Can't, now," he grits out. "We'll be moving out soon. Can't afford to fall asleep."

Stubborn boy's not even much use awake in this condition, but Johanna knows how to pick her battles. A heartbeat later, she's on her feet again.

"Jo-"

"I'll be back."

She knows her other muscles will pay the price of compensating for the damaged ones, but she hobbles her way over to where the medics are frantically dragging patients back from the brink of death. As she hobbles, she rehearses her arguments in her head, because she has to fight through the haze of waking up before she can fight anyone else.

Only a few minutes later, she's back at Finnick's side with a syringe in her hand.

"Morphling delivery!" Painfully, Johanna lowers herself beside him. "Come on."

Finnick makes a face. Tempted, but trying to cling to his willpower.

"You have a dislocated shoulder. I'm happy to dislocate the other one if it helps you decide."

"Johanna, I know you stole that."

"Well, they said you could have one as soon as they could spare someone to administer it, but they didn't want any amateurs doing it wrong, so I figured I'm exempt and they just don't know it. Here, let me roll up your sleeve. Can you lie down?"

"Do I have to?"

Johanna shrugs. "It helps with the nausea."

"Mm." Finnick considers. "I'll take my chances."

Efficiently, not giving him a chance to back out, Johanna administers the shot. His eyes are leaking tears, but he keeps his face as still as he can, fighting his pain.

Then she pulls a couple ration bars out of her bag and wolfs them down. She offers Finnick one, but he shakes his head minutely. He does, though, accept some water when she holds her canteen to his lips.

She's putting her canteen back in her shoulder bag when a medic comes over.

"It's about time-" Johanna starts to say, just as the guy is saying, "It'll be another couple hours." He hands over an ice pack and is gone again.

"Fucking hell!" Johanna snatches the ice pack and holds it against Finnick's shoulder so that he doesn't have to. "You know, I can go hold a gun to someone's head, update the triage rules a little."

When he doesn't react, even to black humor, she knows it's bad. Distract him with information, then. That's probably what Mags would do. "What do you mean, we're moving out shortly? I thought we were safely behind our own front lines again."

"Ha," Finnick snorts. "Enemy territory. Temporary camp. Traveling by night."

"Oh, shit." Now she's imagining getting taken out by an assault before they can relocate. And she can't even fight back in this condition. "I can't believe we have to move again. I was planning on living the rest of my life, dying, and being buried on this spot."

Still no reaction, and Johanna's running out of ideas. Sitting crunched on the ground with no back support and trying to avoid kicking the patient next to her, while holding up an ice pack, is hard on her back. Johanna keeps shifting awkwardly, trying to find a posture that works. But at least she's in better shape than Finnick.

"They sent me back into the arena," he says, and this time she can hear in his voice that he's crying.

That throws her for a loop so hard she doesn't know how to respond. _Because they couldn't keep you out? I thought you liked the arena, crazy kid._

_Who are you and what have you done with Finnick?_

But if he volunteered and finally got in over his head, he wouldn't be the first, and that's even worse.

"They sent me into the _arena_ ," he insists, more distressed this time. He sounds like he's pleading with her to understand that this is the worst possible thing that could happen to anyone. 

And of course it is. But...he was all gung ho this morning. He was _laughing_ this morning.

What the hell happened in there?

She really wants to ask, but he's in no condition to answer.

"I know," is all she can think to say. "I know. Are you in shock?" she prods. "Did you get a head injury that you don't remember?"

"Jo-" That's a whimper.

"That's it, I'm not very good at the hand-holding. I'm hijacking a doctor."

She starts to rise, but Finnick actually reaches behind him and grabs her hand with his uninjured right one. "No, you're great, please."

"Definitely a head injury." His hand is crushing hers, but he does need her to apply the ice pack, so she hesitates.

"Jo, please, they put me in the arena."

"Okay." She's at a loss, but she sits back down. At least she can ice the shoulder. "I know. There aren't going to be any more arenas. We're winning this. You don't have to go back."

Johanna's still thinks he'd be better off if she left. She's seen him cry, whimper, beg, and call her "Jo" in the last five minutes, and he's going to hate her in the morning if he remembers this at all. But she can't leave.

She just sits there, switching the ice pack from left hand to right hand and back as her arms grow tired, and murmuring, "I know," every time Finnick chokes something out in his strangled voice, until finally, finally, a goddamned field medic comes to set his shoulder.

Finnick hangs on to Johanna's hand through the joint setting, and she breathes easier when the bone pops back into place and he gasps out his relief.

After it's strapped, the medic says, "I'd tell you not to overexert it, but who am I kidding." Then he grabs his supplies and moves on to the next patient on his list.

"Why does everyone assume I'm a macho shithead?" Finnick complains.

Johanna laughs in even more genuine relief to hear him sounding like himself again. "Because they've never seen you turn into a total pussy at the first sign of a cold snap."

It's a thin laugh, but it's the first laugh she's heard from him since she found him wounded. But he still won't let go of her hand. Johanna cuts off his next desperate plea for her to stay and settles in, because it's more embarrassing when he begs.

She's the one who pilfers drugs for you, not the one who thinks of soothing things to say. It's actually kind of pathetic if you can't do any better than Johanna Mason for your TLC.

* * *

The first day, fleeing again back to rebel-controlled territory while in pain, is the worst. Johanna only gets through it by babysitting Finnick, which gives her something to focus on besides her pain and doesn't piss her off. She still snaps at him, but he clings silently to her hand, and not until he finally comes up with a witty retort, does she know he's feeling a bit better.

If she's going to have any kind of a friend, it's going to have to be someone who can banter back without taking her acerbity personally, and she's grateful that Finnick's always known how to do that.

She finally gets one of her painkillers inside him, when it's safe, and then they pass out side by side. Finnick sleeps sitting up, his weight shifted uncomfortably off his injured shoulder, and Johanna clutches her bag of medication to her like a security blanket.

When Johanna wakes up, it's with apprehension. First about her own body and its chances of healing, and secondly about Finnick's state of mind. 

Every muscle is stiff, and even the ones that can move don't want to. Johanna tries to take in her surroundings with as little movement as possible. It's still nighttime, though the tent is lit inside. Finnick's sitting motionless, asleep, beside her. She should go back to sleep, she knows. She's in no shape to look after anyone else, but maybe by the time Finnick wakes up, she will be. If he's going to be falling apart, better with her.

"How's the back?" he murmurs, as Johanna shifts.

Johanna freezes. "You're awake?!"

"I usually am," Finnick answers wryly.

"Didn't you take the painkiller?" Now she's suspicious that he spat it out when she wasn't looking.

"I slept a couple hours. I don't think it knocks me out the way it does you."

"Lucky," Johanna starts to say, but he looks anything but lucky. "Can you lie down?" she says instead. "I'll keep watch."

Finnick makes a skeptical sound, but eases himself gingerly down beside her. Watching him move in tiny, precise movements like hers, Johanna knows she needs to do something.

She looks around. It's not as crowded here as it was last night, but it's still too public for her to be patting his shoulder. Maybe if she puts her foot against his ankle, it'll look accidental.

Just as he feels her shoe brush him, though, Finnick moves his leg to make room. Johanna swears under her breath. "No, hold still," she mutters. "I'm doing the best I can."

"Oh!" Finnick puts his leg back with a grateful look.

Johanna's instinct is to talk to him, distract him from his pain the way he distracts her from hers on nights like this, but who wants to talk about the arena? Maybe she can tell him more about log driving. He seems to enjoy her stories.

As she's gearing up, trying to find words through the haze of pain and painkiller, Finnick's voice, low and aching, comes through the night.

"I used to model myself on Brine, you know. I wanted to be Rudder, but Mags said I had to be Brine, at least when anyone was looking."

Johanna's neck prickles. "Finnick, what happened to Brine?"

"Same thing that happened to the rest of our victors," he says flatly. "I killed him."

"What?!"

"Mags wouldn't have been in the arena if I hadn't convinced everyone Katniss should be our top priority. Octavius wouldn't have been on the stage when we opened fire if we'd been able to pick a better time, which we would have been able to if I hadn't decided we needed to allow a reaping so I could protect Katniss. And Donn wouldn't have had to rescue Annie if I hadn't...Brine should have seen this coming."

"For fuck's sake," Johanna snarls, "they're all Careers. At least give them credit for getting themselves killed."

That brings Finnick out of his funk to stare at her. "What?"

"If I die," she insists, "give me the credit for fighting in the first place."

Finnick's eyes still look like he's seeing something a million miles away, but slowly they start to focus on her. He nods, a little. A promise.

"I'd have gone after you in there myself," she tells him, "but we thought you might need to be carried."

"Johanna, I don't need to hear that. I have enough-" He chokes, and he breaks off before he can finish that sentence.

"You have enough nightmares? Tough. You're going to hear it because it's true. I would have come for you. I thought we went over this the time you ended up in the ditch."

Finnick sighs out a little breath and turns his head to the side, too tired to fight. She can tell he has nightmares about that episode. Too bad, so does she.

Well, Brine is gone. Johanna tries not to have feelings about that. She remembers bantering with him like she does with Finnick, not sure if she was going to end up warming up to him too, but willing to give him the chance.

No more chances.

"At least he was a volunteer," she tells Finnick. "Guess who picked that sector of the jungle to get Blight killed in."

Finnick gives her a sympathetic look. "At least I was a volunteer."

She knows the reminder's supposed to make her feel better. It should, given how pissed off she is about being reaped not once, but twice. But on a day like this, it just reminds her that he's always volunteering and it makes her feel like she's always holding back.

 _If I had the training,_ she tells herself. But with no amount of training can she imagine being as cooperative as Finnick, smiling at all the patronizing looks, or making excuses for Katniss from sunrise until sunset in vain hopes of getting into her good graces.

_How does he do it?_

When Johanna looks over at Finnick for some kind of clue, she finds him sound asleep. Involuntarily, she smiles to herself. _That didn't take long._

* * *

On the second day, Johanna's well enough to leave the hospital tent, if she takes it slowly.

She's in such a hurry to get outside, where it doesn't smell of sour sweat and vomit, and people are doing things that aren't lying around moaning, that it takes her a full day to realize Finnick hasn't also been released.

Gritting her teeth and barging back inside the tent, she finds him holding an ice pack to his chest with his good arm. He's slouched back against a stack of boxes, his left arm in a sling.

Immediately, Johanna crouches down beside him and takes over the ice pack. Finnick sighs in relief and lets his hand slip away.

She pulls up his shirt briefly to see what's underneath, and replaces the ice pack as soon as she's seen the heavy bruising. "Getting into fights in the hospital?"

Finnick smiles politely at her joke, but his eyes are bloodshot and ringed in dark circles. "Fractured ribs from the rockfall. I didn't notice at the time."

Johanna narrows her eyes. "Ignoring all chest pain?"

"Something like that," he admits. "I didn't really think there was anything they could do about it. Then it turned out to be a new injury, not just my...you-know-what."

"You look miserable."

"Just tired. And it's impossible to find a comfortable resting position with this many injuries. They're giving me painkillers, though, don't worry."

"Oh, good, no going to great lengths to obtain them." She fixes him with a look, and his laugh is sincere this time, if brief.

"No, I won't ask you to sell your body for me." He winks outrageously, and she rolls her eyes, but inside she's dying. He's not trying to make her feel bad, he just thinks this kind of shit is normal, the kind of thing you joke about. And that makes her want to murder everyone who taught him that.

"They didn't bind your ribs?" she says instead.

Finnick shakes his head. "They said it would just make me breathe more shallowly, and that would give me lung problems. Which, you know, is the last thing I need. I'm supposed to take deep breaths even if it hurts. And the painkillers are to make sure I can keep taking deep breaths."

"Do they know about your-?" Johanna asks, cutting herself off before anyone overhears.

"You're the only one who knows," Finnick says. "You and Rudder."

And he's the only one who knows about her back. Unless that medic up in Seven figured it out. The unfairness of it all is why she'll power through any pain she can to fight back.

Then Finnick holds up his good arm to her. "But while you're here, you can give me a hand up. I need to take care of something."

Johanna hesitates, then covers her weakness with "Anything I can handle?" She's better at walking, if you can call hobbling walking, than lifting right now.

Without bothering to hide how sorely tempted he is, Finnick looks up at her while he considers. "Do you mind not knowing why? I trust you, but you're better off with plausible deniability."

"I'm game for anything you're game for," Johanna says, with her head held high. "Unless you think I wouldn't agree if I knew what it was—no? Then you can tell me."

Finnick shakes his head hastily. "No, I didn't mean that. I just don't want to drag you into my mess."

"Whatever it is, we're in it together. Spit it out," she insists.

Finnick hesitates. Johanna glares at him, and his lips curve into a slight smile.

"Since you insist. There's going to be a hearing for questionable decisions made in the arena. Because we're all about rule of law and trials and accountability now. And I'm included. It's one of the reasons I'm still in here, where they can keep an eye on me."

Rage flares in Johanna. "So a bunch of arena virgins who've never been in your shoes think they have the right to judge you?"

"No, one of them has. And he killed his district partner, so I think it'll be all right. I just need to have my defense prepared."

She takes a deep breath. If Rudder's going to be judging him, then, yes, maybe it's a formality. "Tell me what I can do to help."

"Can you get a hold of a copy of the tape of Reaping Day in Four in Seventy-Five?" Finnick asks. "I think the Three contingent brought copies of everything related to the Hunger Games, so they could pick it apart for clues to this year's arena."

"They won't let you leave?"

"No," Finnick answers, "they will. I was asking for a hand up when you offered to help. But only supervised, and it's a debate. Always best if the other side can't figure out what you're up to beforehand. So it would be wonderful if you could get my materials for me, if you don't mind being involved."

Johanna gives him a look like he's stupid. "I don't know, let me check the list of things I wouldn't do for you. Oh, right, I can't find it, because there's nothing fucking on it. I can play-act, you know. I'll get it for you and no one will ever know why."

Finnick chuckles, then presses a hand to his ribs. "I know you can. You've fooled me more than once. Thanks, Johanna."

* * *

Johanna barrels her way into the hearing with Finnick. If they arrest him, they're going to have to arrest her.

Her insistence raises some eyebrows, but she prevails. Finnick says nothing, but when she stands behind him with her hands curved over the back of his chair, he leans his head back and touches it to her hands.

Then the hearing begins.

As the questions are read out, Johanna is able to piece together for the first time some of the events of the arena. District One was reluctant to be "rescued", the girl put up resistance, and Finnick shot her. Seems pretty straightforward to Johanna.

When Finnick rises to give his defense, Johanna's grateful there weren't any trials for the old Hunger Games.

"She was an enemy soldier. I had full respect for her abilities. It's a known fact that all the tributes from One and Two these days have actual combat experience."

He looks tired, and Johanna hopes the timing isn't a ploy to undermine his defense.

"We agree she was an enemy soldier," someone on the panel says into a pause that's just long enough that she isn't—quite—interrupting. "She was also effectively unarmed, and in your power. There was no need to shoot her. We do not go around shooting the enemy except in self-defense." Johanna peers at the speaker, then silently fumes. That's Elspa. Is she taking years of bitterness about the Hunger Games out on Finnick?

"It was a combat situation," Finnick says levelly, "and it was in self-defense. She had not surrendered, and she was refusing to put down her weapons. I'm sorry if you've never killed anyone with a spear; I have."

Elspa doesn't like that reminder. "But she was no threat to you. She couldn't have gotten her spear into her right hand, aimed it, and thrown it before you fired."

Finnick gestures toward the screen. Rudder replays it in slow motion, and Johanna watches closely. Today is the first time she's seen it. Ruby has a spear passing from her left hand to her right, but both hands freeze when Finnick gets his aim. She's slowly backing away, looking at him with wide, frightened eyes, and scanning the terrain behind him and to the sides.

"Look at how deeply her knees are bent. She's prepared to spring, run, duck, roll, whatever. She still considers herself a combatant. She's just looking for an opening."

"She had no opening. She had spears that weren't ready, and you had a gun that was." This is someone Johanna doesn't know. A middle-aged man. Not a victor.

"Johanna?"

Knowing her cue, Johanna walks to the viewer. Rudder lets her extract the tape of the Seventy-Eighth Hunger Games and insert her own tape. On screen, Reaping Day of the Seventy-Fifth Hunger Games comes up. Johanna punches the numbers in: twenty-one minutes and thirty-seven seconds.

If Rudder knows what's coming, his face shows no sign of it.

The tribunal watches as the whistle of the train signals the departure of Finnick and Mags toward the Capitol. The Peacekeepers relax their guard, and one steps forward. In a split second, Rudder charges him from behind and gets his gun out of his hand even as he's knocking the Peacekeeper to the ground. Two more Peacekeepers are shot down before anyone has a chance to react.

Johanna stops the video.

How Finnick keeps from smirking, Johanna will never know. "I submit that it is possible for an unarmed trained Career to take out a soldier with a gun."

"But she was standing in plain sight!" Elspa protests in disgust. "There's no way she could have taken you by surprise."

"Her district partner wasn't," Finnick points out. "Who do you think she was looking around for?"

"He was out for the count."

"Yes, but did I know that? I didn't know who was caught in that rockfall we triggered. All I knew was that she was engaging in threatening body language in front of me and looking around for backup support. And even if we'd already gotten to her partner, for all I knew, she'd met up with the rest of the pack again and I had two armed Careers sneaking up behind me."

"The suspicion of this panel," someone interjects, "is that you were overcompensating for District One three years ago."

Finnick laughs scornfully, but Johanna knows him well enough to suspect bravado. "Haha, no, you lose. I knew Cashmere personally, she didn't want to be there, she wasn't a volunteer, her district hadn't declared war on us, and she's with us now. She's since killed enemy soldiers from District One. Next."

When the vote comes, it's five to two. No fault.

But Elspa's not ready to let him go. She holds up the paper in front of her and reads off the next charge, actually rocking forward onto her feet for this one. "Did you pull the trigger on Brine?"

Finnick bares his teeth.

"No, _I_ didn't. _I_ don't even know why he was in the arena in the first place, and I don't know why _I_ 'm the one being held accountable here."

"He was saving your life!" Elspa shouts.

"He did nothing of the sort!" Finnick shouts back. "I had a plan!"

"What was your plan, anyway?" Johanna asks him. "Because it didn't look so hot in the replays." As soon as she says it, she regrets making it look like she's not on his side, but she's furious that he was fending off mutts alone in his condition and she was safe outside and Katniss left him there, and when Johanna's furious she doesn't think about what she's saying.

"I had the Capitol thinking I was trapped-"

"You had us thinking you were trapped!" Johanna interrupts.

"-But I had precise control of the compartments behind me, and a lot of others below. I laid a bunch of triggers and jammers as traps early on, in case I needed to set them off during the endgame. I had my remote control, and I was waiting for as many mutts as possible to position themselves on top of my traps, so I could pull the triggers on them, drop the rocks behind me into the ground, and make my exit."

"With mutts nipping at your heels?" Elspa's skeptical. "All it would take is one or two to chase you down the tunnel. You were in no shape to fight, and nobody outruns a panther."

Finnick rolls his eyes. "That's where the rocks come in. I get across the chasm, then I can re-drop the pile again behind me, killing or at least cutting off anyone pursuing me. It was a good plan."

Johanna, imagining him with a dislocated shoulder, cracked ribs, and malfunctioning lungs trying to sprint when he already hasn't been able to sprint for years, has to bite her tongue on betraying his secrets. "It was a reckless plan," is all she says, "and I would have come after you myself."

Finnick glances away from Elspa long enough to give Johanna a look of raw pain, imagining her dead in his trap.

"Leaving aside the question of whether you would have survived this plan," Rudder says, who also knows of Finnick's secret handicap, "none of us knew you were pulling the broken-winged bird trick, or that you had any plan at all besides waiting for rescue. So we sent a rescue. It was a reasonable thing to do. We've since gotten Emma out in one piece."

"I'm glad to hear it, but leaving aside the question of whether you believe I can take care of myself," Finnick mimics, "you should have known everything I do on camera is fake. I said Tunnel Seventeen was damaged because I knew the Capitol would send in troops if they could, and I wanted them coming through an entry point where I had the power to take them out. I had a trigger there, I just didn't have a jammer. And no, I didn't pull it, that was the Capitol.

"I wasn't counting on you sending troops through an entry point where the Capitol had the power to take you out. You think I just casually talk to myself out loud on camera? I trusted you after all these years to know I wasn't talking to you."

"Based on the information I had," Rudder says, refusing to back down, "I made the command decision to try to get you out of there alive without diverting more resources than we could spare."

"And instead you got Brine killed! Why is him dead and me alive better than the other way around? You shouldn't have diverted any resources at all. My job was to protect the kids and Katniss, and die if necessary—it's a total waste of resources not to let me do my job."

"He pulled that shit on me too!" Johanna erupts at Rudder. "I ordered him dragged injured out of a ditch under fire, and next thing you know, he's in a hospital tent arguing with me that I should have left him there."

Finnick sighs. "You're both missing the point that babysitting the babysitter is about as counterproductive as it gets. Next time, I expect you to let me handle anything I get myself into."

Rudder gives him a look that's so easy to translate into words it makes Johanna laugh. _I'm going to do you the favor of pretending I didn't hear anything that stupid._ No matter what Finnick says, she aches for an academy where she could have been one of them, part of that inner circle.

With no evidence that Finnick's lying about the Capitol pulling the trigger on Brine, the acquittal on that one is unanimous. 

Finnick raises his head at the announcement, and gives Rudder a look of his own, ruthless and commanding.

"Bury him at sea." A hiss runs through the room, at Finnick giving Rudder orders like that.

"Already in the works," Rudder retorts. "Lyme and I are laying out plans to go through the arena to retrieve the bodies as soon as it's feasible. You're dismissed." Without sparing a further glance at Finnick, he turns back to his officers and opens the next topic of business.

Johanna follows Finnick out the door, still laughing in her anger. "See, you can argue with Rudder, but it's like arguing with a brick wall. You can argue with me, but it's like arguing with a bear. Talk all you want, you're going to end up eviscerated and missing a limb or two." Lyme's name has leached some of the ache, though, made Johanna remember that there is an inner circle she's part of. That if Lyme and Rudder have each other's backs because of their shared history, so do she and Finnick.

It's just that part of having Finnick's back is not letting him get away with his own form of stupid.

"I let Mags do her job," Finnick points out.

"Maybe that's the problem," Johanna retorts. "Where are you spending the night? It's obvious I still need to supervise you and your crazy stunts."

"Well, now that I'm free to leave the hospital, I guess that means I'm reporting to you for sleeping duty. Where am I spending the night?"

Finnick always makes Johanna laugh, even when he's driving her up the wall. "I'll see you in the barracks. You coming to offically receive the kids on camera?"

"Oh, is that this evening? Yeah, I'll be there."

But he's not. Johanna goes alone and gives a welcome speech to the tributes from Seven. She spends the whole time wondering where Finnick is, being thankful someone wrote the speech for her, trying to tell herself that not everyone thinks of her as a coward for not being there to rescue the kids in the first place, trying to tell herself that she's not.

Then she finds him in the barracks, sound asleep. At least he's not in the hospital, the first place she checked.

He wakes up when she rousts the sleeper out of the bed beside him so she can have the spot, and half turns over. Then he flinches.

"Are you taking your painkillers?" Johanna demands. "You can't-" She doesn't know how to finish that sentence, not where anyone else in the world can hear. Act like her painkillers are of the utmost importance, and then-

"I must have slept through my last dose," Finnick explains. "I couldn't fall asleep for the longest time," he admits in a low voice. "I keep wondering if they're right, if I was overcompensating. And even if not, if maybe I could have gotten her to surrender anyway, if I'd waited and put more pressure on her."

"And maybe while you were waiting, the Two contingent would have snuck up on you."

That should be a definitive argument, but somehow it's not, not for Finnick. "But would that have been the strategic option? It might have been good for interdistrict relations."

Johanna only knows one way to get through to him. "And then there'd have been a team of three Careers ready to start slaughtering more tributes in the Cornucopia without you and Julius, and then where would 'interdistrict relations' be?"

Finnick sighs. "I guess." Propping himself up gingerly, he downs another pill. "I slept through the reception, didn't I?"

"You're lucky that works for you," she mutters, wishing she had as many painkiller options as he does. "There'll be another reception, when we get back to Seven, to film the family reunions. Want to help?"

Her question is a canny one. With the war effort looking up in District Two, the rebels are hoping not to need Seven to hold the supply lines open much longer. But she's not asking if he's coming back, she's saying _when_. 

"I'll be there." Finnick sighs. "I should have been there today, but no one wants to see me like this."

Johanna's oddly relieved that it's _when_ to him too.

"They saw you in the arena!" she protests. "If it hits you hard afterward, that's fair."

"First time, it hit me so I had more energy than I knew what to do with," Finnick says, amused. "Sure wish I had that problem again."

"You had a blistered mouth the first time," Johanna scoffs. "Rest if you need to, don't be a macho shithead." Easier to give this advice than take it, when total collapse is the only thing that gets her to slow down. But he rests occasionally, and she still respects him. Maybe because he does things that count. Maybe because she knows if she'd insisted more, she'd have been there in the arena with him, yet he still seems to respect her.

Finnick sticks out his tongue, but only his tongue. Making the face that goes with it is too much effort. His eyes drift closed again.


	5. Chapter 5

Arriving triumphantly in Seven, Johanna savors the feeling of being home again and of bringing two tributes with her. She'd like to gloat that no one's pulled that off, except of course that one time in Seventy-Four, but with Brine dead and Finnick half dead...

If there are bragging points, they're not hers. Still.

Euphoria carries her through her tiredness all the way to headquarters, where she arranges everything that needs to be arranged, right up to filming the reunion tomorrow morning. Then, with a sigh of relief, she's finally free. 

Looking forward to a long-awaited reunion with her bed, Johanna belatedly notices Finnick standing by, looking at her blankly. It dawns on her that he's waiting for an assignment. Johanna tightens her lips, giving him the once-over. With her pilot injured and drugged, she had no flight on the return trip to Two, so she herded them all back the long way by ground transit. 

He still looks like shit. Johanna jerks her head authoritatively, indicating that he should follow her.

Grateful, he does, but when they get to her room, he hesitates with his hand on the knob. "You're sure? You're Johanna Mason, you'll tell me when I'm being a nuisance?"

"You're being a nuisance. Now get inside and assume the position."

With a little laugh, he obeys. Johanna follows him inside to find him lying on the rug on her floor, looking like he never wants to leave.

To her surprise, he doesn't. Before the Hunger Games, he slept in here but worked as much as she did. Maybe more. Now, she gets some advice on filming the reunion out of him the night before, and he sleeps through it again. And keeps sleeping. Even when he's not sleeping, he's still on her rug.

She wouldn't worry, even talked to a nurse who told her that his recovery time isn't unusual for what he's been through, except now he's skipping meals too.

"Finnick, I'm serious. I'm no good at babysitting, but people are supposed to eat. I know that much."

He doesn't lift his head from the rug. "Give it to someone hungry. I never even get out of bed any more, I don't need so much food."

"You need food so your body can heal. Come on."

When Finnick doesn't respond, Johanna picks up the plate of apple and potato slices and plops down onto the rug beside him. "I have nothing else to do and nowhere else to go. I will sit here and hold this piece of apple under your nose until you eat it. You might as well give in now."

"Bluff," Finnick calls. "You're very busy."

"True, and so I'd appreciate you not dragging this out. I'll still win, but I'll be pissed."

Finnick sighs. Johanna crosses her legs and gets more comfortable.

"I'm really not hungry."

"Tough. You're not the boss here."

Finally, Finnick rolls onto his back and props himself up on one elbow to accept the plate. "Yes, boss."

As he's eating, though, Finnick presses, "Is there really no one in the district who could use this more? We're not short on food?"

"No one who could use it more than you, nope."

Finnick looks unhappy, but he doesn't fight her.

This time. The next time, Johanna remembers what Annie said. She leaves the food on the rug in front of him, and settles herself down behind him, a hand on his shoulder.

"Johanna, really. All I do is sleep."

"And what, you have to earn your food? Or is this like the arena?"

"What, the part where they're called the Hunger Games?" he asks in confusion.

"No, the part where every year you point out how much easier it is to die in combat than in cold blood, and then you conveniently volunteer your way into a situation with mutts and rocks and a plan that hinges on your ability to sprint."

"Well, maybe that was my condition for wanting to live."

"And now you're going to starve yourself? Fuck that. I'm under orders not to let you wither away. Annie would want you to eat, wouldn't she?"

"This is blatant manipulation," Finnick protests.

"You think that's manipulation? Try this." Johanna starts stroking his shoulder, light and easy, just the way Annie said he likes it.

Finnick groans. After a while, he stretches out like a cat, practically boneless under her touch.

She stays, and strokes, and strokes and stays, until he can't stand the suspense. "Now what, you hypnotize me, and then you threaten to stop unless I eat?"

"Tempting, but I have a lot of faith in your willpower. No, I'm going to keep doing it until you eat. If you think you have to give up your rations for no reason, something is obviously wrong, and I'm going to stay here until you un-wither."

That gets him up. While he's eating, Johanna keeps her hand on his shoulder, because it was astonishing just how hypnotized he was. She'd forgotten, and now she's kicking herself. She can't be trusted with people's feelings. How on earth did she get left with this responsibility?

"Finnick, don't take this the wrong way, but would you be better off recovering with Annie? If you're not up for traveling alone, I'll go with you, it's not a problem-"

Finnick's shaking his head. "I know you hate babysitting. I'm sorry they asked you to, I never did-"

Johanna thumps him on the back to shut him up, then stops to try to figure out why. Why doesn't this feel like babysitting? Or if it does, why doesn't she resent it? 

She's never had much patience for invalids, including herself, but if she can just train Finnick to eat without arguing, he's surprisingly productive for someone who hardly ever gets out of bed.

When she's not traveling, she comes home in the evening and settles down to wait for her painkiller to kick in, or to get tired enough that she doesn't need one. While she's waiting, she brings him up to date on the latest developments, and she gets a free sounding board she trusts. Whether or not he has advice, whether or not she agrees with it, he always has intelligent questions, and she invariably thinks of something new while they talk. And he reliably cheers her successes on as though they were his own.

Johanna doesn't admit that she's delegating travel more and more, just as she doesn't make Finnick admit that he could have recuperated in Two, or Four.

"Finnick, let me explain to you how our-" Johanna reaches for a word, and settles on _alliance_ for a lack of a better one. "-alliance works. We have each other's backs whether the other one likes it or not. I didn't ask you to go risk your life selling your body on the streets to get me painkillers. And you didn't ask me to drag you out of that ditch, to give you a place to sleep, to force food on you, or any of the other times I saved your ass, or that I'm going to save it again if I have to. I'm not kicking you out because I'm tired of you. I'm just saying."

"I appreciate that," Finnick says warmly. "Really. But it's not an option. I'll leave if you want, but I can't go to Annie. She's better off if I don't know where she is."

Johanna's torn between a surprising urge to keep him here, and the feeling that she's in over her head and needs Annie to bail her out. "That may have been true when you were coming and going all the time, but it's got to be safe if you just sleep non-stop in her room."

"No, it—it doesn't work like that."

Johanna wants to demand why not, but if it were her, she wouldn't be sharing details of her marriage with outsiders either, and so she lets it drop. "You stay here, then. And you eat."

* * *

Finnick hates that the best nights are the ones where Johanna can't sleep. He doesn't have insomnia any more, but sleeping all day means that sometimes he's up at night. When she's tossing and turning in the bed and can't find a comfortable position, he sits up on the rug and takes a sip of water, just to let her know he's awake if she wants to talk.

She usually does.

He talks about Mags, a lot. How she took him in off the streets when it was raining, made him come sleep on her couch. How that turned into a bedroom of his own. How he learned to make waffles.

He learns in turn about her life. About her father, and the last years of his life, declining slowly in his chair, while she fed them and took care of the house.

Finnick looks around self-consciously at his makeshift bed on the rug. "Well, I'll be back on my feet soon."

"Oh, not you." Johanna waves her hand dismissively. "You're a fighter."

Sometimes, in the darkness, as they grow more comfortable with each other, they start to dwell on more sensitive topics.

"I've never asked you this. And I won't again if you don't want to talk about it. But I've been wondering...was Conch really your first kill? I'm not asking out of morbid curiosity. I really do want to understand what it was like for you, growing up here."

"I was on my own." Johanna's silent a bit. "I'll answer that if you answer my next question."

"Deal."

"He was my first intentional kill. I did knock one of the drivers into the river with my pole. But I was just—I wanted him to leave me alone, I wasn't expecting him to lose his balance. I tried holding out the pole for him to grab onto, but he was thrashing, and the current was strong, and I didn't want to fall in.

"No one saw me hit him, and by the time anyone noticed the commotion, I was running alongside the bank yelling for him to grab my pole. No one else could save him in time either. Drowning wasn't exactly a rare way to go on the drive, it didn't look suspicious. This is the first time I've told anyone."

Finnick nods. They're both quiet for a while before Johanna speaks again.

"I didn't mean to kill him, but I'm glad he's dead."

"I'm glad he's dead," Finnick tells her. "I'm glad when it came down to you or Conch, that you made it." Then, as always, he has to lighten the moment. "And I'll count myself lucky that you never pushed me into a river."

"Oh, well, I'd have worked with you even if you were grabby. I have. I do, even now. No, don't ask who, I can handle it. All that mattered to me when we had our fake secret-trading affair was that you weren't really a pleasure-chasing braindead hunk of manflesh. But you wanted to drown the Capitol as much as I did."

Sitting up, Finnick leans his elbows on the edge of her bed and looks up at her in the dying candlelight. "I wish you could have been the Mockingjay."

"I wish one of us could have been." She smiles. "I would have saved Mags for you."

"Mags would have liked you. What was your question for me?"

"I was never clear on how much of your victor life was forced on you by Snow. I feel like I got a different story every time you talked about it."

Finnick makes a hollow sound. "If I knew, I'd tell you. First Mags said I needed to camouflage myself. Then Snow started telling me who I needed to please. Then Mags and I worked out a way for me to gather information, and that meant a lot of names not on Snow's roster. Why do you ask?"

Johanna takes a deep breath. "I guess I've never been sure how much of my back pain and painkiller use was something they forced on me and how much has been me looking for an excuse for not being able to deal with a minor wound. And also—how pissed off should I be? Because we're going to capture Snow soon, and we could make him perform sexually. Watch him squirm."

A laugh bursts out of Finnick, startling him into forgetting all the reassurances he was trying to come up with for the first part. "You think we'd find volunteers?"

"Oh, I'd volunteer. You keep forgetting I don't have sex for pleasure either. Sex for revenge—now that I could get into."

Finnick lays his head on the side of Johanna's bed and smiles. "I've never known anyone like you. I think I'd tell you to go for it if it didn't involve me sleeping alone." He's not sure where this falls in Four's rules about war crimes, but he loves the image. "This is better, though. I promise."

"All right, just remember the offer's open."

Finnick remembers. He doesn't know what he did to deserve her, but he's got a place to stay with someone who doesn't mind keeping him around. Even if it's only because he's too tired to be Finnick, to be crazy and demanding and over-the-top, she hasn't shown any signs of thinking he's too much.

It gets so he stops holding his breath, waiting for the other shoe to fall.

* * *

Johanna doesn't even look up from tying her shoes. "You stay here," she says to the noises she hears from the rug.

"I know," Finnick answers. "I'll keep sleeping here. But I should be done recovering. There's no reason I couldn't go back to work."

"But you haven't. So you must not be done recovering."

"I keep trying," Finnick says in a self-loathing voice that chills Johanna. "Mags didn't let anything stop her, not even a stroke. I always thought I was as dedicated as she was. But here I am, still in bed."

"Are you taking your painkillers?" Johanna demands. She can't be in charge of making people feel better, it's not who she is.

"I was taking them! I stopped because I'm not in pain anymore. I just can't do anything even when I can stop sleeping. I don't know what's wrong with me."

"Should I ask Rudder?" Johanna snaps. "You finally burned out?"

Finnick shakes his head vehemently. "No! I want to work, I haven't stopped caring one bit." He takes a deep breath. "I'm sure I'll be back on my feet soon. You know me, I like being useful."

He sounds so hangdog that Johanna flounders for a bone to throw him. "How about keeping an eye on the news, and giving me updates? I'm in meetings all the time now, thanks to your painkillers, and I'm sleeping at night, so I've got no idea what's going on outside Seven."

He smiles. "My biggest war contribution: Johanna sleeping and going to meetings. Sure, I'll keep an eye on the rest of the country for you. Gladly."

Johanna smirks at his surprise when she arranges for a television to be set up in her room. That's the one thing she has to thank the government for, that they invested in making televisions cheap, portable, easy to install, and not dependent on electrical wiring. She doesn't quite trust that Finnick's telling the truth about not being in pain, not when he's acting so unlike himself, and he'll have all the privacy she can give him.

"Feel free to use the bed when I'm not here," she offers, but Finnick just shakes his head. So she points the projector at the wall opposite his rug, and hands him the remote control. "Broadcasts from Thirteen, Three, and the Capitol."

Even bedridden, Finnick's worth his weight in gold. Somehow, he condenses the relevant parts, sifts through the propagandistic nonsense, and brings events to life. Johanna finds herself analyzing details she might otherwise have ignored. "So Thirteen makes a big show out of how they captured a major stronghold, and the Capitol version doesn't even mention it?"

Finnick nods. "Just boasting about a big wave of reinforcements. They made it into a parade, prettied it up to look real impressive, a soundtrack, the works."

"Like hell! Where'd they get an influx of new recruits this late in the war?"

"Greenhorns, probably," Finnick guesses. "Drafting anyone over the age of twelve."

"I wish we could just get this over with." Johanna grits her teeth. "It feels like any day now, we should win, but they keep dragging it out, and I'm afraid they're going to pull out some secret weapon we can't beat. Or nukes."

She can tell this isn't a new thought for Finnick. "I don't want to give you false confidence. I can't be sure. But if the final decision is up to Snow, I'll be more surprised if he does than if he doesn't. My considered opinion is that he'd use the nukes if he could win with them, he can't, and he knows it."

"If it were me, I'd go down with blood on my hands." Johanna shakes her head ominously. But she relaxes a little. Finnick knows the Capitol better than any of the rebels, or at least outside of Plutarch and his cronies.

"Snow's always been pragmatic. Power's what he craves, not blood. He won't destroy everything if it leaves him nothing to rule."

"Well, he's dragging out the inevitable," she says, and tries to believe it.

Then the broadcast from Three a week later has Finnick scratching his head. "They—the leadership in Four—actually backed the reinforcements story, in passing. It sounded to me like they were trying to downplay a loss, justify it by being outnumbered, and not make the situation seem too dire, all at the same time, which made for a story with a lot of holes, if you're willing to look beneath the surface."

"Wait a minute." Johanna narrows her eyes, the pieces falling together in her brain. After a bunch of rapid-fire questions at Finnick, she's bouncing on the bed. "They're pulling troops off our border! That's why Glenn said there was so much movement. They're not planning an attack, they're retreating! We can take advantage of this! We can chase them all the way south to the Capitol!" Leaping out of the bed, she's gone before she can even find out if there was more to the update.

It's only a couple days before she's back, grumbling at Finnick because she can't get enough support to pull off an offensive maneuver.

"I should have predicted this. I had a hard enough time getting anyone in this district interested in a defensive war. You have any ideas for making an advance happen?"

"Is it strategically important, do you think?" Finnick wonders. "Or better to focus on rebuilding here?"

Johanna scowls, because that's such a leading question, even if he was polite enough to couch it neutrally.

"I suppose," she mutters. "It'll be nice to be able to put up infrastructure without having it blown up in my face every ten minutes. But I really wanted to sink my teeth into the backs of their necks and make them regret turning their back on Seven."

"Go, if you want," Finnick suggests. "You're high profile enough and a good enough fighter I'm sure it'll make a difference to the rebels, having you there."

"Maybe I will," she says stubbornly.

But she doesn't.

* * *

Nothing breaks through Finnick's apathy until the news shows Katniss in a wedding gown and Peeta in a suit. Finnick's surprised they didn't wait until the Capitol fell, but maybe they're trying to use the propaganda to get that last bit of support they need.

"Turn it off, turn it off!" Johanna shouts, wrinkling her nose and covering her eyes with her hands.

"Come on. You don't have to watch, but I want to. I'll go to the conference room if you want."

"Damn you."

"Well?" Finnick twists his head to look at her.

"Fine. But expect sarcastic commentary."

"I expect nothing less."

"Wanna place bets on a grenade going off in the middle of the ceremony? Girl on Fire," she cackles.

Remembering Johanna cutting out Katniss's tracker and drawing off the Careers, Finnick doesn't rebuke her. She talks shit to make herself feel better, but she always does what it takes. But watching Katniss accept her bouquet, he doesn't encourage Johanna either.

"She treats you like dirt," Johanna says defensively, after a long enough silence.

"She...has her reasons. I still haven't figured out why you don't. You let me sleep on your floor, for fuck's sake."

"Well." Johanna looks uncomfortable. "I wanted to fight back, and you gave me a way. If I can have that, they're welcome to talk about us."

He didn't mean the rumors, but if Johanna doesn't want to talk about why she puts up with him, Finnick won't push it.

He's even stopped trying so hard to leave, trusting that Johanna would make it clear if he was overstaying his welcome. Only watching Katniss say her vows spurs him into making another effort. 

He needs to know—what kinds of feelings does she have for Peeta after all this time? How much of this is her finally getting something she wanted, and how much is pressure from Peeta, Plutarch, Panem? She looks happy enough, but Finnick doesn't know her well enough to tell if it's genuine.

 _I should go._ Finnick begins his latest attempt to gear himself into action. _Snow's going to be captured any day now. I could testify at his trial, I'm sure Johanna'd want to and then some. I could bring Katniss a wedding present. I know I could read her better in person._

* * *

Finnick's still in Johanna's room when the Capitol falls. Johanna shrieks at the announcement, and then growls and throws something at the wall when it's immediately followed by a non-declaration of victory. Snow's gone to ground like the rat he is, his supporters are still hiding him and blowing up rebel camps when they can, and the war is still on.

"Fucking hell!" Johanna misses her throw on purpose—televisions aren't that easy to come by in Seven, and she considers this one Finnick's, not hers. "I just want this to be over with!"

"It'll happen."

"What if it doesn't? What if we never find him? What if he dies in hiding and his followers bury him and the body never turns up?"

"Reaping Day," Finnick suggests. "If Reaping Day comes and goes and we still have all our kids, you can declare victory in Seven. Besides, it's the first day of the new year. Perfect time for new beginnings."

"Fine." It makes her feel better to have a concrete day to look forward to, and one not that far away. "But I want something to _do_ ," Johanna grumbles. "I wish we'd been useful for something other than our geographical location."

"You've been useful, Johanna. There are a lot of good fighters here, and we held the border and fought for every train that went through. And look at Ashe."

"Yeah, we even got our very own martyr."

"It's less glamorous than it sounds," Finnick says wryly.

Johanna puts her hand on his shoulder.

And that's how, come Reaping Day, she finds herself standing on a tree stump, making a speech in front of as large an audience as she could gather. Time for this war to be _over_.

Mid-sentence, a commotion breaks out. Without hesitation, Johanna leaps off her makeshift podium, charges into the crowd, and demands to know the meaning of this.

"The rebels have declared victory! The war is over!"

"What?!"

It seems she and Finnick weren't the only one with this idea. Plutarch and Pearleye broadcast their own speeches this morning, and word is only now penetrating Seven.

Johanna never even gets to finish her speech.

Someone starts a bonfire, and she joins the writhing, screaming, back-pounding celebration. Hurling whatever comes to hand into the fire to watch it burn, Johanna screams until her throat is hoarse, and still her voice is drowned out by the cacophony of victory.

The alcohol's broken out immediately. Johanna stares at the clinking, fast-filling, and fast-emptying glasses with something like lust. She so badly wants to get completely wasted and forget about the last—she won't count the years.

"See, the only bad part about all of this-" she recounts, loudly, over her—she's not counting the drinks, either—latest glass, to anyone in earshot, "is that I was totally looking forward to ripping Snow to pieces. Like Scorpio venom—not fatal, but _damn_ if it isn't painful-"

"You don't have kids." Soren cuts her off. "I'm going home to mine. Setting out north tonight."

Johanna rolls her eyes and turns to look for the nearest person who doesn't have kids. Mickee. She's young. Johanna would know if she had kids, right?

"But you're with me, am I right? Nothing happened, it's annoyingly anti-climactic."

Mickee shrugs. "I'm just glad it's over. Maybe it's better not to make it all about blood and vengeance, just a day we're taking back."

Johanna huffs and gives up. "Lame. Anyway, it's an obvious day. That's how Finnick and I ended up doing the same thing—this wasn't coordinated, I don't work with outsiders _that_ much."

"Finnick?" Mickee looks up. "Is he here?"

Johanna jerks, half-guilty. And she's been so careful not to let on that she knows where he is. Then all the partying went and loosened her tongue. Not that she isn't long past denying that there's a sexy boytoy sleeping in her room, but everyone needs to leave him the fuck alone and let him sleep.

But the war's over. No one's going to start exploiting him now, surely?

With her judgment a little less impaired, Johanna might have left him alone, but she finds herself standing in her room with only a hazy memory of how she got there. She tries convincing him he needs to come celebrate a victory he earned as much as anyone still living, but she's not up to articulating all that. So she gives up on words and starts tugging on his arm.

No match for her, Finnick follows her outside, and then she gives herself over to the festivities with abandon again. The party shows every sign of continuing until dawn, and Johanna's planning to be there to close it down. A few people have already started for home, but Johanna's got nowhere to go and nothing to do. When this is over, she's got a district to rebuild. Electricity, running water, food, roads, buildings...everything's been devastated by the war. It'll take years to put this district back together. But it'll be possible, and she's one of the people who made it possible.

She may never have had as much authority in this district as she wanted, never gone a day without having to fight for what she did have, but her worst fears weren't realized, either. She wasn't shunted to the sidelines and totally ignored, she had support, and she chased her prey into the ground.

Johanna still salivates at the image of President Snow groveling, but she can give that up. She made it to the victory celebration alive, more or less in one piece, and in what universe was she ever expecting that? Alcohol's an even better painkiller than adrenaline: she feels _great_.

It's a long time before she notices Finnick, who should by rights be cracking jokes at the center of things, sitting off to the side on a patch of grass. He's covering his face with his hands, not moving.

Johanna curses. Annoyed at him, annoyed at herself, she unconsciously starts tempering her drinking and keeping half an eye on him.

When a couple of people try to drag him into the impromptu festivities and he doesn't react, Johanna snarls at them to leave him alone and positions herself in front of him like a grizzly with her cub. As the buzz starts to wear off toward early morning, some mixture of guilt and concern joins the annoyance, and slowly penetrates Johanna's exuberance. At last, giddy but not as smashed as she wants to be, she drags Finnick back to her place—their place—ignoring the snickers.

Still reeling, she starts a fire in the stove, sits him on the rug, and throws a blanket around him, all on autopilot. She puts her hand on his shoulder, and waits.

Johanna knows he'll start talking without any prompting, so she makes herself bite her tongue on all the gleeful, vindictive remarks she wants to make and lets the silence fill the room.

"I am so very tired," Finnick tells her. "I had to stop and catch my breath walking to the celebration tonight. It's getting worse. Mags is dead. Annie's gone. And I look around and ask myself...this is it? This was worth it?"

"No more Peacekeepers. No more Reapings," Johanna chants, singsong. "No more district borders. No more quotas. No more Capitol. And you can go find Annie now, can't you?"

"Famine," Finnick says listlessly. "Anarchy. No more decent medical care, because we smashed the only place that had hospitals or medical schools or laboratories."

"Yeah, well, now we're all on equal footing. Don't know about you guys, but I can't say it's much different for us in Seven."

"Still, we've lost all our infrastructure. What percent of the population here has electricity and running water? Five? Ten? Four and Three have been living on fish and little else for a year. One, Two, and what's left of the Capitol are in the grip of a real famine. The eastern districts...food is hit or miss. So is electricity."

"So we'll rebuild!" Johanna says, exasperated. "At least we have the freedom to rebuild now."

"At least," Finnick concedes. "But who is 'we'? We've basically seceded up here. Do you think anyone is going to submit to an outside government without a fight?"

"Nooo," Johanna has to admit, "but that doesn't mean we won't be better off on our own than we were under the Capitol."

"Sure, maybe so. And the rest of Panem, you think everything's going to be peaceful and everyone's going to get along? Plutarch and Pearleye never agreed on how government should be done, and now they've got conquered territory to fight over."

Johanna can feel tomorrow's headache starting today. "You couldn't give me one day to enjoy this victory, could you?" She sighs. "Can't you enjoy it yourself? For fuck's sake, the war's over, and it's going to take time before there's any more action."

"I can't wait that long. No one else has spent as much time trying to keep both sides of Panem cooperating as I have or knows how bad the situation is. I have to start now, go find Plutarch, meet whoever's in charge in Four these days, and try to do what I can so there isn't any more action."

Johanna stares at him. "Finnick, you can't even get out of bed. And now you've got it in your head to start shuttling all over Panem again? You're-"

She stops, because he's hanging his head, looking utterly wretched. "I know," he admits. "You've been kind enough to give me a place to sleep off the last Hunger Games, but I'm just going to have to pull myself together somehow. The last year will have to be enough."

"Kind, hell," Johanna snaps, while her brain tries to process the idea that it's been so long. If it's Reaping Day, of course it's been a year since the last Hunger Games, but she hadn't quite realized Finnick's been borderline bedridden for a year. "I'm under orders to keep you from burning out. What if I make it an order? You stay here."

Finnick shakes his head. "I wish I could, but people died for this. Mags died for this. If I have to get out of bed and go do something to make sure it wasn't in vain...I'm not even wounded any more."

"News to me," she says. "I'm glad your lungs have healed."

"You know what I mean. Not in a way that'll keep me from doing this job. And if they really are going to keep getting worse, it's all the more important to do what I can now."

"Do something here!" Johanna urges him. "I could use the help, and you've got plenty to contribute after all this time. You know this district."

"I will, when I can spare myself from diplomacy. I promise to encourage everyone to respect Seven's independence."

Johanna has to bite back the urge to take the bait and start talking politics. There'll be all the time in the world for that, and only this one window of opportunity to stop him from dropping in his tracks. "If your lungs are going to keep getting worse, isn't it all the more important to go look up Annie?" If Johanna can't get through to him, surely Annie can.

Finnick takes in a sharp, painful sounding breath. "I can't. If I go—I won't come back."

"Then go! Or she can come here." Johanna doesn't understand why he's so dead set on making this more difficult.

"I don't know why she'd want to," Finnick says bleakly. "Into a place that I'm worried about turning into another war zone? I hope it's not so horrible there that she'd rather be here."

For one moment, Annie is lucky not to be here, because Johanna's face turns hot with fantasies of physically pulverizing her. How the hell do you marry someone like Finnick and leave him thinking you have no reason to come back?

"What's so great about District Thirteen?" Johanna puts her hands on her hips. "You'll see her when you're there on business, right?"

"She's not in Thirteen," Finnick answers. "It wasn't secure enough. She's in Ayre. Where I hope she has a safe, happy, stable life. And if she doesn't, I've had to live with that possibility for two years, and I'll just have to keep living with it. I let Mags die. I can do this."

Johanna is silent, stunned. Ayre. Well, it makes sense, if keeping her safe was that important. Hardcore, though. "Send a message, then," she finally says. "Let her make that call."

Finnick shakes his head, harder this time. "I can't. I can't open myself up to the temptation. And what if she is in trouble, and then I'm torn between helping her and what I know I need to do? I made that mistake in Seventy-Five."

"Then I'll fucking do it-"

"No." Finnick's on the verge of tears, but his voice is firm. "I'm asking you in the name of friendship not to. And not to bring it up again. I know what I have to do. Please don't make it harder on me."

Johanna breathes hard and fast, impatient, frustrated, helpless. Making it harder on him shouldn't even be on the table; Annie should just be here, making the whole problem moot.

Finally, hesitantly, Johanna says the words, "I'll come with you," knowing that she'll regret making the offer and regret not making it. "We'll shuttle around Panem together as long as you think it's necessary."

Finnick gives her a small smile, deeply moved. "No," he says gently. "You have important work to do here."

She wants so badly to accept his refusal that it takes all her willpower to remind them both, "I'll find work to do." Johanna knows her weakness is showing in every syllable, so she forces herself to add, "I can contribute."

Finnick puts his hand out, and then, when she doesn't object, covers the back of her hand with it. He's always good about not letting it linger a second longer than she's comfortable with.

"You can find work anywhere. But you're more cut out for organization than diplomacy. And this is your home, this is where you have work you're committed to."

Johanna can't argue. She doesn't even want to. She's not the kind of person who drops everything that matters to her because someone else needs her. But sometimes, looking at Finnick, she wonders why he has an endless capacity to ignore what he wants in favor of what needs to be done, and what it says about her that she can't be more like him.

"It'll be all right, really," Finnick assures her.

She doesn't believe him, but what else can she do? Johanna jerks the blanket back up over his shoulder where it's slid down. "Report back for sleeping duty, then."

 _You stay here_ didn't work, but these words get a real smile out of him. "That I can promise."


End file.
